


The Simplest Things

by keeponshouting



Series: Baby, This is Love [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mental Illness, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeponshouting/pseuds/keeponshouting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't know where the idea of a group road trip came from but they do know that this will be the first time they've all been together in years and, if the past has been any indication, it may be the last.  This is their chance to rebuild friendships, rediscover themselves, and repair everything that's been broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Racket on the Roof

Like most of their ideas that come to fruition – barring those that have something to do with what their leader terms “revolution” and law enforcement generally calls “civil disobedience,” amongst other names – no one is entirely certain as to where this one began.  Well, with whom it began is perhaps more accurate.  Since high school the “where” origin of most long-term conversations has always been fairly simple to pinpoint.

They call it the Musain.

It started with Enjolras, of course, though Combeferre and Courfeyrac were there from the very beginning as well.  Those three, together since long before anyone else could remember, were the heart of what came to be called Les Amis.  High school was when they started collecting the others, drawing in like-minded students to join what they originally framed as a political debate club but which, after one too many instances of “disturbing the peace,” merely became a band of impassioned misfits.  By the time the original trio started looking into university, there were nine of them.  Come the end of four years in universities spread across the country, there were ostensibly ten, and it was the Musain that kept them bridging the distance.

Combeferre had set it up early on, when there’d been only three.  Courfeyrac had suggested making a website to advertise and Enjolras had simply taken some of the money his parents gave him but he never used and bought them their own private space.  So the Musain had come into being as their little, encrypted corner of the internet and each time they adopted a new member into their ranks, the true initiation was being given the chat room password.  Originally just “Les Amis Chat,” Jehan had renamed it almost instantly and the new name had stuck.

So maybe Enjolras could have looked back in the logs – of which he had kept every last one, divided and sorted by date, all politically relevant conversation properly separated and categorized – to see who had first suggested the idea of a post-university road trip but why bother?  Once Courfeyrac had latched onto it, the origin of the concept no longer mattered.  Courfeyrac got excited, then Jehan got excited, then everyone else got excited, except for Enjolras, which only served to get Grantaire more into the idea, and then Combeferre was organizing the entire thing.  What would Enjolras even do with the knowledge of who to blame now, anyway?  Besides which, he’d have had to search thousands of hours of what primarily amounted to absolute nonsense, in no small part thanks to the perpetually intoxicated presence of one Grantaire, and reading through all of that ridiculousness once was more than enough for a lifetime.

 

_Jehan entered The Musain_

**Bahorel:** he’s been out there all day

**Bahorel:** except when he cam e in to piss

**Bahorel:** an grab a beer

**Courfeyrac:** Hi Jehan.

**Combeferre:** So you think he’ll be ready to leave – hey, Jehan – Friday morning?

**Jehan:** hi guys what I miss?

**Bahorel:** depends how early

**Combeferre:**  I think Enjolras is expecting you here by noon.

**Courfeyrac:** Jehan, nothing much.   Bahorel just signed on to give a progress report.  You home?

**Bahorel:** hey Je

**Bahorel:** han

**Bahorel:** noon? seriously?

**Jehan:** yeah, just got in.  aren’t you at work?

**Bahorel:** that means gettin gout of here by 8

**Combeferre:** So?

**Courfeyrac:** I’ve been stuck in the copy room all afternoon.  No one cares if I text.

**Bahorel:** you remember I’m on R duty right?

**Jehan:** well ok.  Just don’t get in trouble.  I want to see you this weekend.

**Combeferre:** Just hide his alarm clock somewhere and set it as loud as you can.

**Bahorel:** and have coffee ready so he doesn’t kill me?

**Courfeyrac:** I’m only here two more days.  What would they do?  Lock me in the closet?

**Combeferre:** Preferably, yes.

**Courfeyrac:** …

**Courfeyrac:** Gee, thanks Ferre.

**Combeferre:** What?

**Jehan:** adventures in juxtaposition.

**Combeferre:** Oh.

**Jehan:** no one is locking my boyfriend anywhere. jsyk. except maybe me.

**Courfeyrac:** Oh baby baby.

**Bahorel:** on that note

**Bahorel:** R’s too quiet

**Bahorel:** brb

_Bahorel left The Musain_

 

Bahorel still wasn’t sure how they’d ended up in Pennsylvania but, hey, they had a roof over their heads, both made decent money, usually managed at least two square meals, and kept all the bills paid, so who cared where they were?  Sure the house was in some serious need of repair and, yeah, their roommates were assholes 90% of the time and, well, Grantaire’s room was really just a glorified closet and, uh, maybe having to sleep in the living room half the year because his bedroom was in the basement and the basement was flooded wasn’t the most ideal situation but—

Look, it wasn’t couch surfing, all right?  That’s really all that mattered.  Not that Bahorel had ever been a couch surfer himself but that’s exactly how they’d all met Grantaire.  Jehan had noticed him sleeping in his car in the school parking lot one morning and, next thing anyone knew, their various spare beds and sofas contained one Capital R more often than he ever went home.

To this day, Bahorel didn’t know what had been so bad about his home life that Grantaire had felt compelled to keep all of his worldly possessions in his car but, quite frankly, he’d never felt like it was his place to ask.  Instead, when R had shown no real interest in paying his own way through college and Bahorel had, himself, already got too bored with it to care after the first year, the best course of action just seemed to be getting as far away from all those problems as possible.  Having a rather large sum of money tucked away, Bahorel had sprung for a camper and invited Grantaire to join him on an adventure.  They’d been the first members of Les Amis to leave home.

That had been seven years ago.  Damn.  Hard to believe but it was true.  They’d kept in steady contact with the others through the Musain, even used the camper like a guest cottage when Feuilly had come to visit for a week the one summer and when Courfeyrac and Jehan had wanted a weekend away for their anniversary one year, and Bahorel had been pretty proud of himself when he’d talked Grantaire into making a trip to Philly to meet up with Enjolras and Combeferre at one of their equality conferences, though that event had ultimately ended pretty poorly and Enjolras had thoroughly ignored Grantaire in chat for a good five months after.  As Combeferre had pointed out, though, R hadn’t been all out banned again so he couldn’t have done anything too bad and, soon enough, Grantaire was right back to trolling their fearless leader and Enjolras was right back to letting it get under his skin.

“Grantaire?”  Nothing.  “R?  You there?”  Still nothing.

With a sigh, Bahorel makes the circuit, leaving the porch, circling the camper, glancing underneath, checking each nook and cranny inside their former road home.  R’s car was still hitched to the back and he hadn’t been in there, either.  There’s always a chance he snuck back inside somehow or maybe he wandered off.  He could have gone across the road for some cigarettes or, well, he’d walked to that little hole in the wall beer shop over the hill once or twice before when he’d been too drunk to—

Was that the sound of something moving on the roof?

Stood squarely in the center of the camper, arms crossed over his chest and what may very well be the tips of fingers spotted now dangling at the corner of one window, Bahorel looks up at the ceiling for at least a minute before he drags one deep breath in.

“GRANTAIRE!”

A flash of color, a solid thump, and a stream of profanity make for both a familiar and a satisfactory answer.


	2. You Get Up Slow

It’s 6:30 Friday morning and Bahorel has groped for the snooze button on his phone enough times that he’s had an extra half hour of dozing since his alarm went off the first time.  In fact, the only reason he finally gets up is because he knocked the damned thing off of the coffee table with that last swipe and now it’s somewhere under the sofa and it won’t shut up, singing loudly about having been asleep for a long, long time while Bahorel himself feels like he hasn’t been asleep nearly long enough.  On the bright side, at least all of their roommates are off at work, so no one is going to come marching down the stairs to pick a fight while he’s lying on the floor, fumbling in the dark, trying to make it stop.

 _All the schools that I went to have all been closed and all of my teachers are dead I suppose.  The songs that we sung have all gone quiet.  What happens below as you sleep at ni—_ He finally gets his hand on it at the same time as the song is interrupted by the vibration of a text message.  Turns out he’s already missed three overnight.

Two are from Bossuet and have to be read in order because they were meant to be a single text but he accidentally hit send halfway through.  Interpreting words that are half the result of autocorrect isn’t the easiest thing to do first thing in the morning but the gist of it, as far as Bahorel can tell, is that Joly wants to know what sort of first aid supplies need to be stocked for the trip so he can have them ready.  Seeing as he’s not sure there’s even a first aid kit still in the camper, Bahorel just tells him they should probably stock everything.

Next is one from Feuilly, asking if he’s got any requests regarding amenities at the beach house they’re renting for their first big stop down in Georgia.  Seeing as Feuilly’s the one who lives down there these days, Enjolras has apparently left him in charge of acquiring their accommodations.  Everyone else seems to have covered all of the important details, though, so Bahorel says as much and drags himself up off of the floor.

Last but not least, of course, there’s a message from Enjolras.  It’s short and concise, repeating all of the pertinent information from their chat the night before.  Bahorel just sends a quick confirmation that the text has been received and sets about making a pot of coffee.

At 7am, noise starts blaring from upstairs and he fills a mug to the thumping, crashing, and cursing of Grantaire falling out of bed and scrabbling to find the offending device.  It takes about five minutes but the sound eventually stops and, after a moment of silence, something is falling over, then a door is creaking open, and finally there are heavy footsteps stomping down the stairs.  Bahorel doesn’t even look.  He just holds a full mug of coffee – strong and black and scalding – toward the kitchen doorway in one hand while the other hand pours a cup of his own.

Grantaire responds with a grunt that’s as much contempt as thanks and collapses into the nearest chair, forehead hitting the table with a solid thunk.  “I hate you.”

“That’s nice.”

“Who’s idea was the alarm thing?”

“’Ferre’s.”

“I hate him, too.”

“You can tell him that when we get to D.C.”

R grumbles and sits up just enough to take one big gulp of coffee and barely winces when it burns everything it touches.

Bahorel lights himself a cigarette, drops the lighter and pack on the table by his roommate’s elbow, and goes about making toast and eggs.

 

_Bahorel entered The Musain_

**Bahorel:** anybody home?

 **Jehan:** hi, B.

 **Bossuet:** Morning, Bahorel.

 **Combeferre:** Good morning.

 **Combeferre:** How’s your time table looking?

 **Bahorel:** hey guys

 **Bahorel:** pretty good actually

 **Bahorel:** we’re caffeinated and fed and R’s int eh shower now

 **Combeferre:** Oh good.  Enjolras got your text this morning but you know.

 **Jehan:** not holding out much hope for Grantaire.

 **Bahorel:** yeah

 **Bahorel:** kinda surprised how easy this morning’s been

 **Bahorel:** pretty sure I’ll have to start the drive though

 **Bahorel:** he’s looking pretty hung over

 **Combeferre:** Color me unsurprised.

 **Combeferre:** Everyone say hi to our fearless leader.

 **Bossuet:** Hi, fearless leader.

 **Jehan:** hi, fearless leader.

 **Bahorel:** hey mr. fearless

 **Combeferre:** He keeps looking/typing over my shoulder instead of just signing on.

 **Jehan:** it was really confusing earlier.  chat looked like Ferre was possessed.

 **Bossuet:** Possessed by the spirit of REVOLUTION.

 **Bahorel:** hey legle

 **Bahorel:** you get my text for jolllly?

 **Bossuet:** Yeah.  He’s gone shopping for supplies.

 **Bahorel:** great

 **Combeferre:** It’s quarter to 8.  You should likely start ushering Grantaire toward the door.

 **Bahorel:** thanks for the advice E

 **Bahorel:** the shower just stopped anyway

 **Bahorel:** see you guys later

 **Jehan:** bye!

 **Combeferre:** Drop us a line if anything comes up on the way.

_Bahorel left The Musain_

It only takes twenty minutes to get Grantaire dressed, out the door, and bundled into the passenger’s seat, which is something of a record (if you don’t count the anomalous event in which Enjolras had managed it in under five).  Courfeyrac had suggested packing all of their stuff into the camper the night before just to save on time in the morning and, chancing a glance at his roommate in time with the turn of a key, Bahorel decides he’s pretty glad he’d done just that.  Beside him, armed with a travel mug, a pair of sunglasses, and a fedora brim tipped low over his eyes, Grantaire looks like nothing short of Hell on toast.

Taking a deep swig of his own coffee, Bahorel finds himself debating whether or not music or conversation is likely to further strain their relationship at the present hour.

By the time the radio is finally switched on, though, it’s R who starts flipping through stations.  They’ve stopped for gas, refilled their mugs, acquired some snacks for the road, and he’s more awake now, which is to say that he’s awake at all, to grumble at the lack of selection.  It’s all shitty teen pop or overly patriotic country or the best of the worst bands of classic rock.

“Don’t we have any CDs around here?”  There’s not much to dig through – the glove compartment, the center console, though pockets on the backs of their seats – and Grantaire falls back into the corner of door and cushion with a huff, booted heel coming up to turn the noise off while his arms cross over his chest, a petulant child.

Bahorel barely even bothered to look at him.  “Don’t you have an adapter or something?”

“Hmph.”  Grantaire’s pulled out his phone now, pushing his sunglasses up between his forehead and the inner band of his hat.  “It’s in my car.  I’ll get it when we stop again.”  Then he curls around the little screen in his hands, testing how well each viable body part blocks the morning sun’s glare.  Eventually he stops with his feet up on the dash, shoulders curved in and head tucked down.  “Did I drunk chat last night?  I think I deleted my log history somehow.”

This time, Bahorel actually spares him a decent glance.  “When do you not drunk chat?”

“When I pass out.”

“Which usually happens after you’ve already said something stupid.”

Grantaire smacks the driver’s shoulder none too lightly and pulls back with the obvious intent to do it again.

“All right!  All right.”  One hand comes off the wheel, palm out in surrender before hitching a thumb toward the back.  “I was on the laptop.”

It’s something that’s become a part of their routine, a habit formed out of a mutual desire for Grantaire to stay a bit more aware of himself, not to mention face any later attacks with full knowledge of what he’s said and done.  Bahorel has tried, on a few different occasions, to get his friend sober, pointing out that spending most mornings checking back on the previous night’s actions was a pretty good indication that you might have a problem.  He even offered to go through it all with him, step by step, not ordering beer when they went out, not popping a top while they watched dumb movies.

Problem is, Grantaire’s excuses for why it isn’t worth the trouble are just too strong and argument only ever makes it worse.  Their other roommates won’t stop drinking at dinner, won’t stop offering him a beer before the movie starts, and heaven forbid someone suggest not bringing alcohol into the house at all.  Besides which, freelancing only pays so much, whether it’s art or editing or ghostwriting crappy romance novels, and covering shifts at some local bars is a good source of supplementary income, which makes getting the booze entirely out of his life a lot harder.  None of this is something Bahorel cares to argue against, of course, it all makes a sad sort of sense, but sometimes Grantaire’s air of bitter futility starts to wear on him.

Moments later, having clambered out of the camper’s cab and seated himself at the dinette with the laptop in front of him, Grantaire is groaning and cursing with his head firmly planted in his hands.  “Shit.  So, if Enjolras kills me, you’ll make sure to bury me before he can, like, flay my corpse, right?”

Bahorel leans a bit to catch sight of his friend in the rearview mirror.  “I’ll get Feuilly to help me build you a nice coffin and everything.”  That said, he settles back into his seat, eyes on the road, as he adds,  “We’ll even hold a little service and write ‘This grave has been brought to you by the letter R’ on your headstone.”

Grantaire snorted.  “You’re a good friend.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Even as he shrugged it off, though, Bahorel had to grin.  “So I’ve been told.  So I’ve been told.”

 

_Message from Grantaire_

**Grantaire:** heeeeeeeey ferre

 **Combeferre:** Yes, you sent Enjolras a PM last night.

 **Grantaire:** balls

 **Grantaire:** did I say anything embarrassing?

 **Combeferre:** I don’t know.  I don’t make a habit of reading my best friend’s messages.

 **Grantaire:** you wouldn’t would you

 **Grantaire:** did he look angry or anything?

 **Combeferre:** Angry?  No.  Annoyed?  Yes.

 **Grantaire:** annoyed is fine

 **Grantaire:** I can live with annoyed

 **Combeferre:** Hangover?

 **Grantaire:** more like hangunder

 **Grantaire:** a mac truck

 **Combeferre:** Well, you’ve got another couple of hours on the road.

 **Combeferre:** Tell Bahorel I told you to take a nap.

 **Grantaire:** doctors orders?

 **Combeferre:** Doctor’s orders.

 

They’re fifteen minutes from their destination by the time Grantaire wakes up again and he’s feeling much better this time around.  He’s got energy when he slips back into the passenger’s seat and props his feet up on the dashboard in front of him, thumbs drumming out a rhythm against his knees.  Bahorel, on the other hand, can’t wait until it’s his turn to get some more sleep and expresses as much in the form of “You drive the next leg.”

“Sure, sure!  No problem.”

Unsurprisingly, when they pull up outside of the condo, their friends are already waiting.

The first one to get to them is Courfeyrac, leaping up from his spot on the bench with a continuous bounce in his stance, even as he grips the frame of Grantaire’s open window and leans in.  “Finally!  Where do we put our bags?”

Behind him, Combeferre is rolling his eyes (but smiling) and waving a more subdued hello while Enjolras is focused entirely upon whatever he’s typing into his phone.  “Just to warn you, he’s running on caffeine today.”

“I couldn’t sleep!”  It’s more statement than excuse and Courfeyrac rocks back on his heels as he says it.  “I was too excited.  I mean, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen Jehan?  Two months!  I have not seen my boyfriend face to face in _two months_.  I cannot express my levels of frustration without Enjolras throwing things at me.”

Bahorel chuckles at that and unbuckles his seatbelt.  “Well, just a couple more hours and we’ll have that sorted.”  Then he’s climbing into the back to pop the side door and let them in.

Grantaire, meanwhile, cheerfully slaps his roommate’s ass and grins as he’s punched in the back of the head for it.

Seeing none of this, Enjolras pipes up, still staring at his phone.  “I’ll navigate.”

“Good.”  Bahorel takes one of Courfeyrac’s bags and starts loading the overhead compartments.  “I need a nap and somebody’s got to keep R focused on the road.”

Their fearless leader’s head finally snaps up at that, grimace visible for only an instant before he clears his throat and blanks his expression.  “On second thought—”  He pockets his phone.  “—maybe it’s better if I drive.”


	3. Get Going

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. If you read this, I love you. Most legit use of a notes section ever, yes?

 “I’m not drunk or anything, you know.”

Enjolras doesn’t take his eyes from the road when the man beside him speaks, which is fine because Grantaire is doodling, ballpoint on denim, and doesn’t actually bother to look up either.

“I could’ve driven.  You didn’t have to jump on it like I’d get us all killed.”

In the back, no one is paying them any attention.  Bahorel has disappeared into the bedroom compartment, only his knees visible in the doorway, and the occasional snore and snort reaches their ears to prove that he’s still alive.  Combeferre and Courfeyrac, meanwhile, have seated themselves on opposite sides of the dinette, both with them with headphones firmly in place.  They’re playing some video game that Combeferre only ever joins because Courfeyrac needs someone with a real sense of strategy and organization on his side.  Much further down the road, waiting for their arrival, Jehan and Bossuet are both probably doing the exact same thing.  At least Enjolras would assume so, given Courf’s laughter and occasional teasing remarks of the sort which he tends to reserve for getting his boyfriend to blush.

Checking his wing mirror before he changes lanes, Enjolras shrugs in response to Grantaire’s slightly petulant statements.  “Excuse me for not being entirely confident in your ability to focus for extended periods of time.”

Grantaire answers that with a quiet snort.  “No.”  The pen in his hand gets a shake and Enjolras catches the motion in his periphery, darting a few quick glances to watch as R presses his lips together, tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, fingers fighting to defeat the drying ink and finish whatever little decoration he’s been placing around the tear at his knee.  His concentration results in a pause long enough that Enjolras almost thinks the conversation, if it could even be called such, is already over.  Except then there are eyes on him and the pen leaves a small dot of blue on his elbow.  “I don’t think I’ll excuse you at all.”

Enjolras sighs and rolls his eyes, opposite hand releasing the wheel to rub at the ink spot and doing absolutely nothing to make it go away.  That’s annoying but the sight of it seems to keep Grantaire satisfied so he supposes it doesn’t matter.  He’ll just wash it off when they get where they’re going.

Beside him, R returns his attention to doodling, but this time with a pencil on actual paper instead of his jeans.

“I’m, uh, sorry about last night, though.”

The words are so quiet, Enjolras almost doesn’t hear them.  Given the hunched shoulders and unwavering focus on the page in front of him, that’s probably what Grantaire was going for.  After all, as often as they argue, apologies are something that they rarely exchange and they never really feel any less awkward.  The arguments are mostly just a matter of R playing the devil’s advocate, saying whatever he can to get under the skin, and Enjolras knows that.  Everyone knows that.  Sometimes he goes too far and sometimes the response he garners is, in retrospect, too harsh, but the apologies are most often a simple understood.  Enjolras is passionate and Grantaire is honest and, no matter what’s been said, they can forgive because they know that of one another.  It’s a comfortable cycle that they settled into years ago.

Brow furrowed, Enjolras divides his attention with a meticulous sort of care, eyes on the road but mind entirely elsewhere.  “Do you even remember our conversation last night?”

“Hnn.”  That sound and the expression that goes with it are enough of an answer before Grantaire actually manages to say, “No.”  He goes on after that, though, pencil still curving along lines that build shapes that build whatever images it is he’s decided to let leak into the real world.  “I mean, sort of.  I remember a little bit.  At least I think.  It’s kind of fuzzy.  Just—  Well, you know—  Look—”

The inside corner of his bottom lip caught between his teeth, he lets the pencil stop and turns his head.  His gaze is so intent, so focused, that it takes some effort not to be entirely distracted by it.  Once, in some psychology course taken for general credit, Enjolras remembers learning that the human brain was not built to multitask on a much grander scale than walking and chewing gum.  He glances into his mirrors and carefully moves himself into the slowest lane.

Grantaire continues on his awkward, nervous ramble.  “I don’t want to start this trip off all weird already, all right?  I mean, when’s the last time we had a chance to get everybody all in the same place?  When do you think’ll be the next time it’ll happen?  Just, I want to try to play it cool and, like, have a good time with the guys and maybe get through the first couple days without getting mad at each other or, you know, like, me pissing you off.  Maybe—”  One hand gesturing vaguely in the air between them, R turned his attention back to his sketchbook, dark curls falling in too late to hide the fact that his face had gone faintly flushed.  “Maybe, for a while, we can actually try to get along.”

Enjolras isn’t sure how to respond to that.

To be entirely honest, there haven’t been many times in recent years that he can recall them being on bad terms.  There had been that time when Grantaire and Bahorel had come to the equality conference and R had got drunk enough to cause a scene at one of the student panels, before vomiting spectacularly all over one of Enjolras’s honors advisors, but that had been three years ago.  The aftermath had only been so bad because Enjolras had been so frustrated about both literally and figuratively cleaning up the mess that he just could not handle cleaning up Grantaire on top of everything else.

Since then, though, everything had seemed fairly normal.  At least, it had seemed normal enough to Enjolras.  Apparently the other side of their constant debates didn’t see it quite the same way.

“Grantaire—”  Enjolras finds himself frowning and contemplates the merits of finding somewhere to pull off and hold a proper conversation.  He could, theoretically, make Combeferre drive the rest of the way to Joly and Bossuet’s house.  Courfeyrac would sit in the passenger’s seat and text Jehan photos of landmarks to keep track of their time and distance and Enjolras and Grantaire could move to the dinette and have this talk over the table, leaning in to discuss the current status of their relationship in hushed and secretive tones.

Except that would draw attention to the situation, wouldn’t it?

Grantaire is staring at his sketchbook with the end of his pencil clamped tight between his teeth.

“R—”  Enjolras tries again, stops, sighs.  Third time, they say, is the charm.  “You know, I never really thought of the fact that we argue as—  Well, I never considered it not getting along.  At least not since that one time back in high school.”  The corner of his mouth twitches into the smallest hint of a grin.

The memory (and possibly the sight of that smile) is enough to make Grantaire laugh.  “Which time?  We had a lot of times.”  No, he knows exactly which one and he stretches his legs until the soles of his shoes are flat against the windshield.  “You mean the first time I came to a meeting and you punched me because you’d never had to defend your point to someone before?”

Enjolras had been in ninth grade, boasting a load of advanced courses and marching right through with straight A’s.  Grantaire had been in twelfth, barely pulling weight in the minimum number of academic courses necessary and filling all of his gaps with as many arts electives as he could manage.  At a glance, it hadn’t seemed like pitting the two of them against each other would have been worth watching.  As it had turned out, however, Grantaire had a far greater intellect hidden in that head of his than he had previously been letting on and Enjolras was, at that point, far less practiced in verbal sparring.

“I gave you a black eye and a bloody nose and you still came to the next meeting and did it all over again.”

“Well, we weren’t allowed to talk to each other in detention.  Where else was I supposed to continue the debate?”

They pause, Grantaire looking serious for a moment, before they both simply crack and can’t help laughing.  It’s comfortable and they go quiet for a while after.  This is, Enjolras thinks, a better way to start a vacation than he had expected.

Then R is fidgeting, sketching nonsense lines in short, disconnected strokes.  “Um.  So—”  He tucks the pencil behind his right ear and stretches his arms out in front of him.  “What, uh, did I say last night?”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows, letting a bit of his amusement show, as he asks, “Before or after announcing in The Musain that your goal for this trip was to get my laid?”

Grantaire’s face falls into his hands with a quiet noise that could be either a groan or another, much more choked laugh.  “Both?”

“Well, before you were mostly trolling me with what you called your ‘collection of pretty people.’”  Out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras can see a hint of redness between Graintare’s fingers.  “Yours is even more impressive than Courfeyrac’s, by the way.  Congratulations.”

The voice that responds is muffled by the flat of palms as Grantaire peeks between thumb and forefinger.  “And after?”

“After?”  When he pauses, it’s mostly just to get a reaction and a reaction is what he gets, as R lets his hands fall into his lap and turns to stare, face almost desperately questioning and quite thoroughly tinted pink.  On second thought, maybe that reaction isn’t what he wanted, as it’s a bit, ah, disconcerting.  Enjolras keeps his gaze firmly planted on the road and lifts one shoulder in a shrug as if it were nothing.  “After I think you were mostly just trying to define my ‘type.’”

A sigh of something akin to relief sounds from the passenger’s seat, then, “Too bad I can’t remember if I had any luck or not.  It’s gonna make getting you laid a whole lot harder.”

“Wait.  Who’s getting laid now?”

“Not you, B.”

“Presumably not you either, Capital R.”  Elbows resting behind his friends' heads, Bahorel leans forward between driver and passenger with a yawn that quickly turns into a grin and a wink.  “Unless I slept through some serious multitasking on E’s part, that is.”

Enjolras isn’t sure if it’s the comment or the sudden motion of Grantaire lunging over the center console to tackle Bahorel that results in the camper swerving and the wail of a car horn going by but, as long as everyone’s still alive and laughing, the latter seems like as good of an excuse as any.


	4. The Lowness

“You know, when Courfeyrac said there was a wrestling match going on, I didn’t actually think he was serious.”

By the time they pull into the driveway at Joly and Bossuet’s house, it is safe to say that the wrestling match in question has quite thoroughly ended.  Standing in the camper’s side door, however, Bossuet looks rather amused to be staring at the scene that it’s left behind.  Courfeyrac has already launched himself out into the sunshine to gleefully spin Jehan in giggling circles (“Ah!  No!  Put me down, you handsome brute!”) but Enjolras and Combeferre have both only moved enough to get a better view of the tangle of limbs that has become of Bahorel and Grantaire.

Bahorel is rolled over onto one side, a wad of tissues stained red under his nose.  “He started it.”

Grantaire tries to kick, can’t get a good angle, and throws a punch at his friend’s leg instead, before cursing at the pain that sends through his shoulder.  He’s also got a split lip, which reopens when he lets his head fall back with a pout, and Enjolras just shakes his head.  It’s a motion that begs the familiar question of “what are we going to do with you?”  No one has yet come up with a feasible answer.

Eventually they all pile out of the camper and into the house instead.  Joly isn’t home yet but Bossuet is familiar enough with tending to his own injuries that he can make sure both Bahorel and Grantaire are taken care of without any of the panicking that Joly would have done.  There’s a complaint from Bahorel about how the blow to his nose (a stray swing of Grantaire’s elbow or possibly the unexpected rise of a knee, no one is sure) is going to make sleeping difficult if he doesn’t take some nighttime painkillers and Grantaire responds with a comment about how his snoring will be worse, too.  That stops the complaining, though, because everyone remembers what Bahorel snoring with a busted nose sounds like and that means he doesn’t have to share the spare bedroom.  They have eight hours’ drive ahead tomorrow and everyone needs all the rest they can get.

When Joly does get home, he still fusses over both injured parties but he also cheerfully announces that Bossuet’s done a good job.

“We should think about eating a real meal.”

It’s Combeferre who makes the suggestion and suddenly everyone remembers that they’re hungry but nothing’s actually done about it until Bossuet mentions pizza, which is how Grantaire ends up outside a while later, a greasy slice in one hand and a cigarette smoldering in the other.

“I can’t believe I get to sleep in an actual bed tonight.”  Bahorel is seated on the front step, leaning back against a pillar with a grin.  “Like an actual bed all to myself.”  He takes a drag off of his cigarette and laughs.  “I never thought I’d want to thank you for being such shit in a fight.”

Grantaire snorts and aims a kick at his friend’s shin.  “Fuck off.  I’m a pacifist.”

Bahorel dodges the foot and taps the toe of his sneaker against the back of Grantaire’s knee.  “In which case, you’re pretty shit at that, too.”

Grantaire plops down on the stoop and pointedly ignores his roommate in favor of taking an over large bite of his pizza.

It’s not until they’re both grinding their smokes out that Bahorel speaks again, watching Grantaire from the corner of his eye.  “So you and Enjolras seem to be getting on pretty well today.  Guess you didn’t fuck up too badly last night after all.”

Consuming the last bit of food he’d brought out with him, R shrugs and swivels at the waist in search of the beer he knows he brought out, too.  “I guess our messaging wasn’t any worse than our talk in chat, for once.”  When he finds the bottle he’s looking for, half of it is downed in one go.  “Trying to figure out what to look for in potential mates, mainly.”

“Hence the conversation I woke up to.”

Grantaire raises his drink with a nod and mentally sidesteps Bahorel’s original response to said conversation.  “Pretty much.” 

Too bad that avoidance is ruined when Bahorel hums.

Most people would probably define the sound as thoughtful.  Coming from just about anyone else, that’s exactly what it would be.  People like Grantaire, however, who have heard it from this particular source a little too often, are more likely to define that hum as trouble.

Bottle now empty, R wonders if maybe Bossuet could mix him up something a bit stronger.

“We should get Courf in on it,” is the statement that finally follows the hum, and Bahorel stretches his legs out in front of himself with a cheerful, little grin.

“We?”

“Of course!”

Yes, definitely going to need to find something stronger.

It’s too late to stop the plotting now, though, and all Grantaire can do is watch the sparkle slowly growing behind his best friend’s eyes as Bahorel starts chin-stroking and talking more to himself than anything else.  “Maybe we could even rope ’Ferre in.  Between the two C’s we’d have enough intimate knowledge to know what to be looking for.  I mean, you’d think so, right?  Jehan’ll probably want to look for a soul mate or something instead of a one-nighter but whatever.”  Waving one hand, dismissive, Bahorel throws his other arm around Grantaire’s shoulders as he goes on.  “He’d probably still be in and – ha! – we can definitely count on Feuilly.  God, I miss Feuilly.  Might have to wait until we get down south before we really start putting our heads together on this one.  Man, this’ll be great!”

R just forces himself to grin and does his best not to let his own misgivings show.

 

Jehan is the first to fall asleep, a bundle of limbs curled up in Courfeyrac’s lap as the little group fills the air with idle chatter.  Combeferre takes that as a sign and suggests that, really, they should all probably be doing the same.  Legs kicked out on an ottoman and back curved to sink low into a rather comfortable-looking armchair, Courf’s two cents on the topic are that he and Jehan aren’t moving anywhere.

Grantaire slips out front for another cigarette while the others start making arrangements for the night and Bahorel makes one deep, long, snoring noise to remind everyone that he’s already been sectioned off from the rest.  There’s not a whole lot of space to be divided, no matter how nice the house really happens to be, and R’s already decided that he’s just going to sleep in the camper anyway so there’s no point in getting in the way while everyone else sorts things out.  That leaves Joly and Bossuet their own room, Bahorel the spare one, Courfeyrac in his armchair, Jehan on his Courfeyrac, and Combeferre and Enjolras can figure out who’s sleeping on the sofa and where the other will go.  It’s just easier to remove all superfluous variables from the equation as quickly as possible.

The bedroom compartment of the camper isn’t exactly the least comfortable place a person could call it a night, really.  In fact, R muses, he can honestly say that he’s slept in much worse, including on some nights while he and Bahorel had called the shitty, little RV their only home.  After all, there were only so many places to go for privacy when your house was on wheels and you might be able to close the bedroom off from everything else but a folding screen hardly counted as a door.  Not that privacy was ever a huge concern for Grantaire while they were traveling but Bahorel?  Well, he’d been a different story because Bahorel, as any one of his friends could tell you, had always been popular with the ladies.

Cigarette smoked and filter discarded, Grantaire pulls out his cell phone at the feeling of it buzzing against his thigh and shoots off a text in response to his roommate’s “whr r u??” before digging out his keys to unlock the camper door.  Maybe he isn’t drunk enough to just wander off into a strange city but maybe Bahorel is drunk enough that he can’t be sure of that.  So maybe Grantaire has enough of a history of doing such things that it is, at least, a legitimate worry.

Bahorel’s return text is just a frowny face and “wll gngiht btuthead”.

Grantaire kicks off his shoes, strips off his shirt, and throws himself onto the bed with abandon.

It’s a few minutes later, just as he’s started drifting off, not even under the blankets or with any pillow save his own arm, that someone knocks.  One eye open to stare at the ceiling, he waits to see if they try again.  Of course they do.  This time, though, the knock is accompanied by Enjolras’s voice, muffled, calling his name.

Confused, Grantaire pushes himself up to his feet and goes to let the other man in.

Enjolras is staring up at the sky while he waits, hands tucked into his pockets and quiet frown on his upturned face.  There aren’t any stars to be seen.  Too much light pollution.  They’re too close into the city.  It’s one of the things, if R remembers correctly, that Enjolras hates the most about city life.

He knows he remembers correctly because the stars are one of the few things they used to agree on.

 “You get kicked out of the house or—?”

Rather than tip his chin back down quite yet, Enjolras tilts his head just slightly to one side, glancing at Grantaire from the corner of his eye.  “Combeferre won the sofa and Courfeyrac apparently found the only chair comfortable enough for sleeping.  Mind sharing some space?”

The way the nearest streetlamp frames the scene, it takes the left side of Grantaire’s brain a moment to catch up with the right, eyes caught on golden edges and dark swaths of shadow.  First he notices the way the lines of the man’s face have started forming, digging in just a little too deeply in all the wrong places for the age of him.  They cut and fold out a map of stern frown and concentration more readily than the merry ring of laughter.

Second he notices that he’s staring.

“Uh, nope.  No.  Come on in!”

Grantaire spins on his heels and heads back to bed, pretending he doesn’t feel any eyes following.  It’s easier just to throw himself at the mattress again, even if he’s still too lazy to burrow under the sheets, and pretend that he’s drunk enough not to think about anything.  Wouldn’t it be easier not to think about anything?  Most certainly easier than not being drunk enough to stop thinking about Bahorel’s commentary before the wrestling match or how drunk Grantaire is going to get mostly sober Grantaire into a whole lot of trouble one of these days.  Easier than lying sprawled on this bed, wondering if he has strong enough eyes to draw in the dark while Enjolras stands there, haloed in the doorway by a streetlamp and no starlight.

Then Enjolras is inside and the door’s closed, so that doesn’t matter anymore.

“How many of us are we going to be able to fit in here at night?”

One arm under his head and the other over his eyes, Grantaire shrugs into the dark.  “This bed, the sofa pulls out, and there’s the overhead.”  He peeks out at the other man’s silhouette and bites the inside of his lip.  “I, uh, used to sleep up there a lot.  Bahorel said it was my cave.  But, like, this thing sleeps six people easy.  Probably all nine of us, if nobody was too worried about whose ass they’d wake up hugging.”

Enjolras responds with a quiet huff of laughter.  “Feuilly said he had a tent we could take along.  I wouldn’t mind using that once we get going.”

“Yeah.”  R gives up and rolls into a seated position.  “Yeah, I’d be cool with that, too.”

There’s a pause before, “I mean, I’d be cool staying in the tent!  Not making you stay in it all the time!”

Not that his moment of panic matters, what with Enjolras still laughing, a bit louder and less reserved, as he leans his hip against the dinette table.  “I was going to say.  It’s a bit early in the trip to already want to get away from me, don’t you think?  And here everyone keeps commenting on how we’ve been doing so well, not shouting at each other.”

Grantaire cracks an invisible grin.  “And not punching each other?”

“To be fair, the last time we came to blows was years ago.”  The silhouette moves and eventually Enjolras is tapping at Grantaire’s ankle with his foot.  “Move over.  I don’t feel like turning on lights to set the couch up and your cave would involve too much climbing.”

“To be fair, the last time we saw each other was years ago.”  Grantaire hesitates but eventually pulls his legs up and under himself and scoots until his shoulder blades touch the back window.  “I could, um, climb into the cave, if you want?  I’m actually pretty used to it.”

The silhouette merely shrugs and pulls its shirt off over its head.  “Entirely up to you.  If it bothers you to share, though, I don’t mind sleeping on the couch as it is.”

Eyes only a little bit wide (or rather a lot bit, thank Whatever for the darkness), Grantaire manages a shrug in return as the edge of the bed dips down under the weight of one Enjolras.  “No.  I mean, it’s not a problem.  I just, you know, wasn’t sure you’d be comfortable.”  He rakes his fingers back through his hair.  “Still not.  I’m kind of a terrible sleeper.  Bahorel and I tried to share a hotel bed that time we came to your conference thing and I knocked him on the floor.  He woke me up and made me sleep in the bathtub.  I just move a lot and take up space and—”

But once again, Enjolras is just laughing and R snaps his mouth shut as a hand comes to pat him on the knee.  “Grantaire, I’ve shared a bed with ’Ferre before.  Many times, in fact, since we were kids, and I’m pretty sure he runs marathons in his sleep.  If you start kicking me and I don’t feel like punching you back, I’ll just move to the couch, all right?”

“Uh.”  R fidgets.  “Yeah.  Yeah, all right.”

Half an hour later, watching the slow rise and fall of Enjolras breathing, Grantaire wishes he could easily get to any of his sleeping aids.  For instance, right about now, he could sure go for a good handle of whiskey.


	5. Stop to See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than it should have. Sorry about that. Just so happens I'm a bit mental and I can't actually write anything but Grantaire's inner monologue while I'm out of my head. Which is interesting, yes, but not exactly telling the story people are here for.

As it turns out, Grantaire wasn’t lying.  He really is a terrible sleeper.  Twice he smacks Enjolras in the back of the head and there’s one memorable incident in which he plants a single tremendous kick of the heel to the small of his friend’s back.  For his own part, however, Enjolras is too tired to be bothered with moving anywhere and he wasn’t lying about his childhood sleepovers with Combeferre.  His response to each attack is merely to shove his offending bed partner back across the mattress and passive-aggressively steal more of the blanket.  It’s an un- to semi-conscious battle of wills and there’s no real question that, by the first hints of sunrise, the decision is coming out to something of a draw.

The sunrise, of course, is when Enjolras finds himself truly waking for the first time, the light creeping in through the back window and glaring directly into his eyes.  He’s kicked the blankets off at some point since the last round and all he has left is a tangle of sheets that’s mostly wound around him from waist to ankle and the pillow that he finds himself hugging to his head.  Beyond that, the first thing that strikes him is that he is tremendously warm.  Second is that the source of the heat, which is curled into the fetal position, is pressed firmly against his chest and stomach.  Third is the sensation of sleep-tangled hair tickling him under the chin.

Then Combeferre is clearing his throat.

In a show of absolutely no grace whatsoever, Enjolras finds his head, shoulders, and pillow all striking the small space of floor between the side of the bed and the wall.  The rest of his body, from feet on up, is still too tangled to go very far.  Luckily, and unsurprisingly, Grantaire sleeps right on through the whole thing.

“Figured you’d be about awake by now.”  Combeferre speaks quietly, hair still mussed from his own night’s sleep and lips curved in an unassuming smile.  His saving grace, aside from being one of Enjolras’s oldest friends, is that he also holds a cup of coffee in either hand.  One he sips, the other he sets aside, and he proceeds to make some token effort to help with untangling the grumbling blond.

“I was hoping not to be.”  The process of becoming upright takes longer than it should but eventually Enjolras finds himself properly seated on the floor, knees pulled up and a hot mug pressed into his hands.  “If I’d known the sun was going to come up directly behind us, I’d have closed the curtain.”

Combeferre takes another drink, back against the kitchenette cabinets, and idly stretches his legs up the surface in front of him.  “If I’d known you were having a bit of a cuddle, I’d have never opened the door.”

The glare he receives at that could melt glaciers.

’Ferre, of course, is entirely unfazed.

“Everyone else is awake, too, by the way, except Bahorel and Jehan.”  He pulls his own knees up in a position that almost mirrors the man sitting next to him.  “I think we’ve all got vacation fever.  Ready for a last hurrah.”

Enjolras hums in agreement and closes his eyes as he breathes in a deep whiff of coffee.

Combeferre is halfway through his own cup.  “Feuilly should even be heading for the airport to get Marius right about now, if I’m remembering things correctly.  Cosette texted some time while we were sleeping to say she’d seen him safely through security and we should all know she loves us or else she’d never see him off at such an hour.”

Eyes opening to find his friend grinning, Enjolras can’t help but laugh at those words.  “Maybe we’ll all manage to make it when those two finally get married.”

There’s a quiet clink as Combeferre reaches out and taps their mugs together.  “It’d be one memorable stag night.”

“Truer words, sir.”  Enjolras sighs and raises his coffee to his lips.  “Truer words.”

 

Combeferre doesn’t mention the sleeping arrangements to anyone and they’re on the road before Grantaire even wakes up.  When he does wake, of course, it’s still not of his own volition.  Instead, it’s to the unmistakable sound of Courfeyrac cursing and falling out of the dinette bench he’s sharing with Jehan, who is giggling (“I told you to stop reading over my shoulder!  That’s what you get!”).  Across from them, Bahorel is laughing and even ’Ferre is grinning a little bit from over top of his book and the pad of paper he’s using to take notes.

Around all of this, it’s Enjolras who appears by the compartment entrance with a smile and a thermos of coffee.

“Anyone ever told you that you sleep like the dead?”

Grantaire just grunts, not awake enough for thinking, and makes grabby hands until his fingers are wrapped around warm plastic.

Bahorel is the one who answers.  “I tell him that all the time.  Drove all the way through Delaware once without him even knowing we’d been there.”

“The hell’s even in Delaware anyway,” is all R manages to grumble.  A moment later he’s too busy cursing when a bump in the road leads to scalding his tongue and nearly dumping half the mug down his bare chest.

In the middle of the camper, Courfeyrac smacks his head on a cabinet.  From the driver’s seat, Joly calls back an apology.  At the dinette, Bahorel is laughing again, so very much louder.

Enjolras takes the distraction as an excuse to sit down on the edge of the bed and leans back on his elbows, which plants him directly across Grantaire’s feet.  “You were right,” he says, voice low enough that only R can hear him over the general ridiculousness going on in front of them.  “You really are pretty bad at sleeping.”

Grantaire almost chokes on his second attempt to consume some of his coffee.

“Drink it.  Don’t wear it.”

“Thanks for that, Chief.”  The sip that follows is rather pointedly defiant and accompanied by narrowed eyes.  A moment later, however, R finds himself nervously scratching at the back of his head and trying to pretend that he’s paying more attention to their friends’ ruckus than the fact that he can feel Enjolras’s ribs against his toes.  “I, uh— I didn’t, you know, beat you up too much, right?  I mean—”

Enjolras rolls his eyes and taps the knuckles of one hand against the side of Grantaire’s knee.  He’s busy watching Courfeyrac drag Bahorel off of the bench for something or other Grantaire missed being said.  It’s a sight very similar to that of the wrestling match from the day before, one would assume, if one were in the habit of assuming due to having been rather too active in the last round to have been watching.  Too bad it’s obvious that no one is quite as used to wrestling with the resident bouncer these days as Grantaire.  Bahorel has Courf in a headlock in the span of under a minute.

“Agh!  How do you have more muscles than ’Ferre has brain cells?  That shouldn’t be humanly possible!”

Bahorel’s laughter rings with the frenzied joy of old familiarity and wrestling soon turns into tickling instead, tickling back into wrestling within a mere handful of minutes.  So it cycles.  Grantaire watches all of this with a faint hint of a smile slowly playing onto his lips like a thumbnail sketch of something that may yet have the space to be.  It’s not an expression that has chanced to grace his features in longer than he himself would ever be able to recall without merely guessing, though it may be something that his roommate could easily tell you.  Smiles of meaning have grown fewer and further between since the moment he graduated high school, when it struck him exactly what all that ending would mean.  Without the constant, physical presence of its inhabitants, the Musain would never be enough to remind a cynic that once, for some short while, he had found himself the faces of conviction.

From the floor, where Jehan is attempting to roll a grinning dead weight of a man off of a gasping Courfeyrac, said weight glances up toward the back of the camper as if he senses a potentially disturbing train of thought and calls, ever cheerful, “Oi, R!  You unpack your meds?”

Grantaire nearly snorts a nose full of coffee and, at this rate, he’s about ready to give up on consuming his requisite amount of caffeine.

Enjolras, at that same time, uses the momentum of Joly pulling them into a parking space to hoist himself back up off of the mattress.  “Should someone else take over driving now?”

“No, I should be fine to keep going for a while.”  In the front, Joly unbuckles himself, valiantly pretending that no one else understanding the concept of a seatbelt isn’t bothering him.  “Bossuet needed a restroom, though, and I thought we might find something to eat.  Some of us haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

Still on the floor, though a merciless jab in the ribs from Jehan did, at least, result in his letting Courfeyrac escape, Bahorel hums.  “Should probably fill up on gas while we’re here, too.”  Then he rolls onto his back and tilts his head to stare at Grantaire, face upside down.  “And seriously.  You.  Take your meds.”  Then he’s gone.

R just pulls a face at the back of his roommate’s vanishing head and polishes off what’s left in his thermos while the rest of the crew disembarks.

Unsurprisingly (and yet, all too very much a surprise), it’s Enjolras who pauses and reaches into the restroom to open the mirror cabinet, where he rifles until he finds the two bottles marked ‘GRANTAIRE.’  Eyes scanning the instructions, he hands over one and continues reading the other, brow slowly sinking together into a prominent V.  It’s a growing expression which Grantaire carefully ignores, tipping a pill into his hand and taking it dry.  He knows exactly what comment is going to break the silence.

“Grantaire, you’re not supposed to drink when you take these.”

R huffs a laugh at the quiet tone of something not quite anger, so very frustratingly and familiarly not quite anger, and hands the other bottle back over.  “You’re not supposed to drink with most things.”  That said, he shoves himself to his feet and makes his way to the closet, squeezing past Enjolras to where he has to dig out his bag before he can dig out a clean shirt.  This is going to be the problem with this trip, now he’s thinking.  This is going to be the problem:  being half fixed in some places and twice as broken in others and they all want to go back to the way things used to be, go back to all the comfortable friendship and affectionate moments that they’ve missed now for years but they might rekindle these next four weeks or so.  They want to get back all of the things that they’ve missed and he can’t really say that he’s any exception.

“Anyway,” he says, to shut down his own thinking, “Bahorel made me switch to taking it in the morning so I’d stop washing it down with a beer or whatever.”

“And the other one?  ‘Take as needed.’  How often, exactly—”

But Grantaire cuts him off.  “No arguments, damnit!  Remember that?”  A fresh shirt on and he doesn’t look up.  He just digs out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and shoves sockless feet into scuffed boots as he heads for the door.  “Let’s just get through more than half a damned day to prove we meant it and then you can start yelling at me and I’ll yell back or, you know, maybe I’ll just ignore you and drink half a bottle of wine instead and I’ll play class clown and it’ll be just like the old days, all right?  Just not today.  Maybe tomorrow but just—  Not today.”

When his feet hit the pavement, he hears a pause, then a sigh, and the clicks and rattles of Enjolras putting medications away.


	6. Notice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is an adventure. Sometimes Enjolras makes mine difficult. But everything does. So here we finally go!

This is his family.

That is the thought which displaces all others when Enjolras finally makes his way into the rest stop diner and is caught by the sight of his friends, so very comfortable, cheerfully falling back into some replica of their old ways.  Bahorel and Courfeyrac are helping a smiling (and blushing) hostess wrangle enough space for all eight of them in one corner while Jehan flits in and out of their personal bubbles to move objects that might get in their way or tuck a flower from the sad, little, bouquet on the next table into some little girl’s braid.  Nearer the dining bar, Combeferre is discussing something with a waiter, what probably began as the logistics of acquiring as much coffee as possible turning into an intellectual conversation on any number of topics, as Joly and Bossuet appear from around a corner, the former fussing and the latter having somehow become tremendously wet.

This is his family and, though they’re missing some pieces at the moment, he has never been happier than when he is with them.

It’s an odd realization every time that it strikes him, fresh and raw and new and just as astounding from each instance to the next.  They are instances too few and far between, he thinks.  And that thought is one which strikes him even less frequently.  After all, during the times when he hasn’t been kidnapped by his personal band of miscreants – for his own good, they say – he is generally too busy anymore to truly think about what having those miscreants so near him, or so far away, really means.

He and Combeferre and Courfeyrac have called each other brothers since they were children and, to be fair and reasonable, he should know that he is not— _they_ are not the only ones who feel this way.  Joly and Jehan grew up together under circumstances not dissimilar to Enjolras and his two best friends, in fact, and it was Bahorel’s family that fostered Feuilly, perhaps making the two of them more like siblings than any of the rest of them could ever be.  When Marius got into trouble with his grandfather, Courfeyrac talked his own parents into taking the younger boy in.  When Bossuet got into trouble, they were all there for him and no one was ever surprised.

It just seems that sometimes—  Well, sometimes, as they all drift apart so much more quickly than they first drifted together, Enjolras just needs to be reminded—they all need to be reminded of how much all of their friendships truly mean.

Maybe that very recognition of what they all used to mean to one another and how badly they all want to get that feeling back is why he finds himself staring out the window to where Grantaire is lighting another cigarette.  When he thinks of everyone else and allows himself the same sort of hope that he sees in his friends, he can identify exactly what he wants to rekindle.  So spread out, everyone busy, most of them unable to travel with any sort of ease, they’ve lost a certain collective strength.  The Musain was never meant to be their main form of communication.  It was just a fallback, a tool.  Without it, their friendship would have almost certainly collapsed over the years but there was a sort of confidence that they used to bring to one another that no chat room would ever hold firm the way that seeing your dearest friends face-to-face when you most needed them always could.

Except that confidence had never really bolstered Grantaire the way it had all of the others, now had it?

If he was honest with himself, looking back on it now, Enjolras had never been surprised that Bahorel and Grantaire – especially Grantaire – had been the first to leave.  Bahorel had always been a wanderer, a boy and now a man with more actual friends outside of their circle than anyone else, his social web only even passingly rivaled by that of Courfeyrac, before Courf had curled himself around Jehan and decided to never let go.  So, no, it hadn’t seemed odd when Bahorel had announced himself too stir crazy for law school and had decided to travel the country instead.  Given that Grantaire mostly seemed to stick around for a lack of better places to go, seeing the cynic hop on board and drive away hadn’t been too terribly hard to expect, either.  It wasn’t as if he had much by way of a home to keep him there.

What had been strange, in retrospect, had been the moment when the rest of them had realized that their two wanderers were not, at least any time soon, going to come back.  Never before had they thought that Bahorel would fail to return to the scenes of his favorite crimes, the homes of his most familiar connections.  That he might spend his entire life traveling, they might have believed, but to stay in one place, so far from the rest, had never quite seemed a possibility and had opened up doors no one else had ever considered using before.

Then they had all started leaving.

The next departure had been Joly, who had chosen a medical school three hours or so south of the rest of them.  It hadn’t been long after that Bossuet had found a job there and moved down as well.  Only a matter of six months or so, if anyone had been counting.  Jehan had followed suit the next year in favor of a school in that same city, because it just so happened to have excellent literature and language programs and, as he had informed them upon announcing his acceptance (which, as it happened, had conveniently arrived the same week that Courfeyrac had celebrated completing his high school “to do” list), he wanted to get away and experience somewhere new but couldn’t stand the idea of not staying near at least some of his friends.  Besides, it wasn’t a terrible drive to make over breaks and holidays so they would all see each other fairly often, wouldn’t they?  At least, wasn’t that the plan?

Except, as Combeferre had ever so carefully and quietly pointed out, Bahorel and Grantaire weren’t exactly much further away than that and how often did anyone ever see them?

From there it hadn’t really got any better.  Marius had moved out of their orbit and off to Seattle, following after Cosette like the lovelorn puppy he’d been since he’d met her (or seen her, as his friends constantly amend).  Feuilly had been offered a job down in Savannah, packed everything, and caught a train with minimal plans as to how he was going to actually afford the adventure but, as it had turned out, a friend of a friend (some guy who had lived with Bahorel and R for a while) had been able to give him a hand.  Somewhere in there, of course, Enjolras and Combeferre had also gone in together on an apartment nearer the Metro.  Then there had been the episode in which Courfeyrac had appeared at their door after a night out and had, with a bit of painfully open and rather drunken weeping (over a text from Jehan cancelling a visit due to weather), turned their toilet into a confessional and found himself being packed up into what had originally been intended as a spare room.

And that had been it.  That had been the end of it.  No more meetings at the local coffee shop and no more parties at Courfeyrac’s while his parents were away.  No more late nights trying to make more drying space while Feuilly and Grantaire painted signs and no more scribbling notes into the margins of sample pamphlets Jehan had talked R into helping him write.  No more trips to the emergency room to get someone’s arm or nose set when a day in the city inevitably went wrong and no more passing out in various heaps and tangles of limbs with coffee mugs and take away containers strewn and emptied all about them.

No more opening the door or window to find R soaked with rain and tiredly, desperately stopping at the nearest house he knew in search of a place he could stay, just for a night that so often became a week, and no more never being able or willing to turn him away.

Having nothing but the Musain to hold them all together just wasn’t the same.

“You gonna join the coffee party or you gonna stand here and stare out the window ’til we leave?”

The question pulls Enjolras out of his thoughts with a faintly startled twitch and he finds himself staring at Grantaire again without even realizing the other young man had so much as come inside, let alone stopped short so close in front of him.  For a moment, then, they stare at one another, hardly a foot apart.  Hair in his eyes, shoulders curved, and hands in his pockets, R curves his lips into the same lopsided smile that they have all seen him force out a million times.  Enjolras is momentarily too distracted by sad lines and dark circles to particularly notice.

Then they blink in unison and that moment is over.

“I’m going to use the restroom.”  Enjolras says, jerking his head in a nod toward where their friends are playing musical chairs to determine the best possible seating position.  “You might want to go fight for a say in the arrangements over there before you get shoved in between Bahorel and the wall.”

R snorts as he makes a lazy turn and pulls a hand out to offer a dismissive wave over one shoulder.  “I’m used to getting stuck between a Bahorel and a hard place.  At least he won’t be making out with somebody half in my lap this morning.”

“I don’t know about that.  After the way he’s been flirting with the hostess—”

Both hands in the air, Grantaire’s head drops, chin to chest, with a laugh.  “Do me a favor and knock on some wood between here and the toilet, would you?”

Enjolras taps a knuckle against the divider in front of the door to the men’s room with a quirk to one corner of his mouth.

As it turns out, by the time he gets to the table, he’s the one who’s been relegated to the chair nearest the wall.  He doesn’t mind, really.  It’s a good place to sit and watch everyone while he sips his coffee – observing Jehan more on top of Courfeyrac than in his own seat across the table, Joly and Bossuet discussing allergen-free meal options with the waiter, Combeferre idly chatting with the old men in the next booth over.  He likes to imagine this is something like life would have been during the past four years of university, if only they’d all stayed in one place.  In fact, the only thing about it all that he might change at the moment is that there has been an unexpected addition to their group.  Not that he begrudges Bahorel his flirtation but isn’t brunch a little early to be shoving Grantaire half off his chair and almost on top of Enjolras in order to make space for the two university girls he’s only known for five minutes?

Grantaire, for his part, just steals a crayon from the un-bussed table behind them and starts drawing red wax portraits of the lot of them on the edges of their placemats while they wait.


	7. Happiness Happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to admit right here and now that I wrote this chapter in a straight shot and haven't actually edited any of it outside of my initial once-over. So here's hoping there aren't any glaring inconsistencies and my failure to revise doesn't draw forth the spirits of any of my former professors to, like, haunt my dreams forever, shouting about how I should have reread and rewritten so much of that chapter of that fic that one time. . . . Yeah, I'm just really tired but I wanted to get it posted so here.

A couple of hours after their stop at the diner, Combeferre convinces Joly to let him drive for a while.  It pulls them off the highway at their approximate halfway point to wander around an atrocious and, Enjolras quite loudly and correctly points out, offensive tourist trap just over the state line of South Carolina.  Not that such an observation stops them from kicking around the arcade for a while (“Damnit, Grantaire!”  “Look, just because I know what to do with my balls—”  “All right, you two!  We’re done here.”), buying some fireworks (“For later!  Jesus.  You really think I’d light a roman candle in my own goddamn car or something?”), acquiring a few garish souvenirs (“Oh my god, there are so many colors!”), and finally, upon Grantaire and Jehan’s joint insistence, visiting the seemingly out-of-place reptile sanctuary.  The last, most of them come to agree, is entirely worth it for the fact that two of the dwarf alligators seem quite intent upon eating Bossuet, who jumps each time a scaly snout and set of teeth strike the glass, and every single venomous snake in the place poises to strike the instant Enjolras steps up to their enclosure, which means it actually gets pretty loud once they reach the rattlesnake end of things.

Then it’s back in the camper and on down the road with only the occasional stop for gas or a snack or a stretching break.

It’s late and dark by the time Bahorel, who is currently driving again, gets a text from Feuilly and grumbles, “That better have our directions in it because we’re almost to Savannah.”  Then he tosses his phone into the back for Grantaire to look.

Sprawled on the sofa, R catches the device and turns to stretch his legs out over Enjolras’s lap (as well as the book he’s reading) until his feet are set, ankles crossed, on the driver’s seat head rest.  “No directions but there’s an address.  Says—  Hey!”  Bahorel and Enjolras both nearly receive kicks to the head as Grantaire jumps up with a grin.  “Isaac’s keeping his place open for us.  Feuilly wants to know if he should beg for hot food ready upon arrival and if we’ve got any requests.”

“Jesus Haripod Christ!”  Never mind the confused expression on every other face around them as his fist  strikes the dashboard with a resounding thump of approval, Bahorel just tosses his roommate a grin in the rearview.  “If this is God smiling down on us from Heaven, I swear I might be tempted to go to church.”

“I don’t know about God so much,” Grantaire notes with a laugh, “but Buddha maybe.”

Sat at the dinette with a sleeping Jehan curled snugly into his lap, Courfeyrac clears his throat as R starts tapping out a response at lightning speed.  “Out of curiosity, uh, who are we talking about now?”

In the passenger seat, Combeferre turns slightly to take part.  “Isaac.  That’s the man Feuilly tends bar for sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Yup!”  Tremendously contented with this new arrangement, Bahorel leans back into his seat and cracks his elbows, palms pressed to the wheel.  “Feuilly’s boss and our ex-roomie.”  He pauses a moment before amending, “Well, I only actually shared a room with him a couple times.  R’s the one who used to sleep under his bed.”

Busy with his texting, Grantaire doesn’t even look up.  “I only slept under the bed once.”

Neither of them catch sight of Courfeyrac’s suddenly intrigued expression or the amused look that Bossuet and Joly exchange, though Bahorel does notice the inverted V of ’Ferre’s eyebrows and Grantaire gets a glimpse of Enjolras frowning as he hands the phone back to the front with GPS engaged.

“I told him to just order whatever was best.”  There’s a quick glance back to Bossuet.  “Just no shellfish, right?  The cook’s allergic to peanuts, too, so that’s not really a thing.”

Bossuet nods with a cheery smile.  “That’s it, yeah, until Joly makes me go for another allergen test.”

Joly rolls his eyes with a sigh but it’s tempered by an expression similar to Bossuet’s.  “You had minimal reactions to half a dozen other things the last time, if you’ll recall.  I’d really rather not leave it be too long and have you go into anaphylactic shock while we’re out to dinner.”

“I do still have an EPI-pen, you know.”

“And I still prefer not having to use it.”

Eyes on the road and a stupid grin still plastered across his face, Bahorel has started humming.

 

When they get into Savannah, everything is sleepy until they reach the city proper.  Combeferre texts Feuilly to ask about parking and gets directions to the employee spaces, where they’re met with a smile, a round of hugs, and a pass to stick in the window until they’re leaving.  It’s just Feuilly, getting everything arranged.  There is, however, as their friend explains during the short walk along the river front, a jet-lagged Marius waiting for them at their destination.

They arrive on the scene to find the young man in question sitting by an open door-style window, dreamily drifting mid-babble while the waitress dresses their mashed together table with hot food and cold drinks, occasionally stopping to pat her lone customer on the head and offering him a remarkably patient and good-natured smile.

“I’m such a hopeless case, aren’t I?  I remember this one time when Courfeyrac tried to give me all of this advice— I couldn’t look him or her in the eye for a week.”

As if on cue, Courfeyrac throws himself into a chair by the rambling man’s elbow and announces, “More like two weeks, Pontmercy.”

Marius starts so badly, he has to scramble not to knock over his wine.

“Which was a feat,” Courf continues, speaking in the waitress’s direction as if he hasn’t even noticed the reaction.  “The dunce here was living with me at the time.”

Jehan, giggling, leans down to wrap his arms around poor Marius’s shoulders from behind.  “What he means to say is hello.  I’ll hit him if you want me to.”  There’s a kiss to Marius’s cheek before the poet flings himself into Courfeyrac’s lap.  “Or would you feel better if I made him sleep on the couch tonight?”

Then they’re all piling in around the table and Feuilly is officially introducing them to their server, a lovely, young lady by the name of Musichetta who has agreed to stay on late to make sure they’re taken care of without Feuilly having to do any work on the first night of his vacation.  No one comments on the fact that, after a few moments’ chatting, Joly and Bossuet seem collectively enamored with her.  In fact, the only indication that anyone gives the two of having so much as noticed is Bahorel’s elbow jabbing Joly in the ribs.  The return jab is discreet, yet hard enough that it results in cringing and muttering about how it’s going to leave a bruise.

“All right, boys!”  Cheerfully tucking her pencil behind her ear with one hand while the other drums fingers off the top of Feuilly’s head, Musichetta smiles around at the lot of them and leans in to look over their table and make sure she’s not forgot anything.  “Before the food gets cold, you’d best start eating.  Is there anything else you’d like me to get for you?  Coffee, cola, beer—  Bar’s not tended, obviously, but it’s open and if I don’t know how to make it, well, I’ll just make Feuilly do it.  Vacation be damned.”

Their laughter wraps around the table like a warm blanket, voices poking out here and there to ask for a latte, what’s on tap, is rum and Coke an option, oh would a root beer float be too much to ask, might we trouble you for a bottle of wine.  Being the only guests of an extremely accommodating, if absent, host apparently does wonders for both the list of possibilities as well as the speed of service and every last item they ask for is in front of them before they’ve even finished quizzing Feuilly on what all they’ve been offered to eat.  When Musichetta takes a seat at a nearby table, sipping her own coffee and watching the group of friends interact with varying degrees of enthusiasm, they shuffle themselves around to make room for her at one corner.

“So where’d the boss man go?”  Feuilly shouts after polishing off a pint.  “I thought he’d want to stick around and meet the monsters he was feeding or at least say hello to R and Bahorel.”

Looking up from her current discussion with Bossuet, Musichetta laughs.  “You know as well as I do how early he has to be back here.”  Then she tosses a glance in the general direction of Bahorel and Grantaire.  “He does expect the lot of you to come in during normal business hours, though, before you leave.”

Bahorel raises his bottle in salute.  “Of course!”  The last of his beer gone, he flashes a wink and a grin.  “Besides, I have to throw him over my shoulder at least once for old times’ sake and I’ll be damned if I’m not perfectly willing to do it in front of the world.”

Hunched over a mug, Grantaire simply mutters into the table, “I just wanna see his dogs.”

Bahorel grabs him around the neck and ruffles his hair to the sound of an entirely unheeded protest and everyone moves on.

Almost everyone.

It’s not until then, as the rest go back to laughing and chatting and the cynic quietly drains the dregs of his fourth cup of black coffee, that Enjolras realizes that something is off.  When they had all been ordering, he hadn’t even thought about it.  With so much going on and other things to distract him, he hadn’t even noticed.  Now, however, with everyone else engaged in cheerfully idle banter, he lets his eyes sweep the table to identify the most glaring of peculiarities currently amongst them and stops with his gaze squarely upon the dark curls of a bowed head, that hair doing nothing to hide the clutching of twitchy fingers wrapped around the only beverage that their band’s token drunkard had apprently ordered.

Had he even asked for a shot in that mug?

There’s a faint grimace to the lines of Grantaire’s face and Enjolras suddenly finds himself uncertain.  Is it even possible at this point for R to make it through a meal without at least one glass of alcohol?  Not until the man in question glances over and, eyebrow quirked, nudges his ankle under the table does Enjolras realize that he’s spent this entire thought process frowning and staring.

He tries for a mild smile but he’s not quite certain how to make an expression seem nonchalantly reassuring.

R just pulls the diner crayon out of his pocket and scribbles on Enjolras’s drink napkin.  _Creeper._

Enjolras isn’t sure how to take that but, well, at least R turns away still smiling?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Sometimes I sit around at work and make notes to myself about the 'verse of this fic and, like, use the notepad program on my phone to write bits of stuff. That, as it happens, is how I wrote the other couple bits I've posted in this series. But, see, I was thinking today, as I was making these notes to myself, what if there were scenes from the past of TST that people other than me might be wondering about? As a result, I'm just going to mention here that, should you ever be curious about past events or things that go unseen in the present of this fic or whatever, you can feel free to bring it up in a comment or find me on tumblr under this same handle (keeponshouting). I'll do my best to answer things and maybe even spin you a yarn. And, uh, now I'm going to bed!


	8. A Weight

They have a three-night rental of a modest beach house on Tybee Island, acquired through a friend of a friend Feuilly has made since moving down to Georgia.  He had a chance at a larger, fancier place but the price difference, he informs them, hadn't really been worth it, even with the list of discounts he'd been offered.  Besides, as long as everyone has a place to sleep and enough space in which to comfortably function, things should work out just fine.

Admittedly, by the time they get there, no one is exactly awake enough to argue either way.

The house is supposed to sleep ten, by which the advertisement means that there are two master bedrooms, two spares with two twin beds each, and a couch in the office that can pull out to fit two more.  Who gets the masters is fairly obvious and the rest sort of fall into place after that.  Bahorel and Feuilly volunteer to take the sofa bed, being the two most likely to stay up chatting until they finally pass out, and Combeferre offers to share a room with Marius because the two of them, one a thrasher and the other a sleep-talker, are the most likely to wake one another.  When Feuilly cracks a joke about the liability of leaving Enjolras and Grantaire alone in a room together, ’Ferre helpfully informs him that they’ve already survived a night in the camper, just the two of them, unsupervised.  The odds of either of them being provoked and successfully managing to smother the other in the middle of the night with their friends right next door are minimal.

Enjolras, for his part, casts the entire conversation a particularly unamused Look, which does wonders to distract from R’s own half-hearted grimace of a grin.

In fact, the only one who even shows a sign that he’s seen the expression at all is Bahorel.  They’ve lived together long enough now that he knows better than to draw any attention to it but still.  That doesn’t stop him from grabbing R (by way of headlock) in order to earnestly and discreetly inquire as to whether or not his friend is feeling all right as everyone else disperses.

“’m fine, B.  Just tired.  Leggo.”

“You sure?”  It’s not really a question.  Bahorel knows full well that he’s not – not sure, not fine.  Not drinking.  The way that R’s hands are already shaking when he reaches up to pry the arm away from his throat is more than enough evidence of that.

But Grantaire shakes his head and persists.  “I’m just—I’m fine, all right?  Just leave it.”

Bahorel frowns and lets go but leaves nothing, voice low.  “Maybe you should talk to Isaac.”

“Isaac doesn’t need my bullshit and I said drop it.”

“No, you said leave it.”

Grantaire just scowls and punches Bahorel, hard, in the arm.

“Ow!  There’s a bruise there, you shit.”

“I know.  I left it there.”  Then he turns on his heels.  “Goodnight, dickhead.”

Gingerly rubbing at his arm, Bahorel frowns after him with a muttered, “Yeah, yeah.  Goodnight.”

By the time Grantaire gets to the bedroom, Enjolras has his back to the door, already changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and preparing to pull a t-shirt over his head.  R pauses for just a moment to watch the stretch and cling of cotton being tugged down, thoughts too tired and scattered to be bothered with the fact that he shouldn’t be carefully recording, in perfect detail, the interactions between every fold of cloth and line of muscle.  Then he shakes his head and raps a knuckle against the wall by way of announcing his presence.

Enjolras glances back, lifts his chin in acknowledgement, then turns away again and sets about folding his dirty clothes into a relatively neat and manageable pile.

The room is fairly small, R thinks, but not uncomfortably so.  It’s nice.  In fact, if the rest is anything like this, he’ll have to congratulate Feuilly.  When Bahorel had said they’d be right on the beach and showed him his share for the rental, Grantaire had expected something a bit more fishing shack and a bit less cozy cottage.

“I thought you’d prefer the bed by the window.”

Enjolras speaking pulls Grantaire out of his personal observations and back into the present with a blink and a mumbled, “Oh.  All right.”

The next glance in his direction isn’t as quick as the last.  It’s almost lingering, appraising.  “I took the one more in line with the morning sun.  I thought you might appreciate that, considering.”

“Considering what, exactly?”  R scratches at the back of his head, leaning his shoulder into the doorframe as he casts his own gaze out the window.  Not that he isn’t grateful to be given the comfort of a corner to curl into but  he’s a little confuse or, well, maybe the better word for it is wary.  That look of assessment focused entirely upon him is nothing new but it’s been so long that he’s not used to it anymore and maybe he’s just imagining things but there always seemed to be more righteous fury behind it before, more of an ulterior motive behind everything.  Give Grantaire what you know he’ll want and maybe you’ll get what you want out of him.

But Enjolras simply shrugs and turns his own bed down, carefully adjusting the pillow before climbing under the blankets with his face to the nearest wall.  “Considering you’re fondness for sleeping in, I suppose.”

“Oh.”

Wait.

“You’re actually considering my preferences and habits now?”

The other young man doesn’t move or respond aside from the pull of a one-shouldered shrug.

Grantaire just stares for a moment before shaking himself into motion and turning off the overhead lamp.  It takes a bit for his eyes to adjust but he can still see well enough in the moonlight to find his own bag.  His process of changing clothes is not as fastidious as that of the man across the room but he is, at least, considerate enough not to let his possessions begin their inevitable mission to take over the entire room.  Not yet.

A few minutes later, waiting for the painkillers to dull the ache that’s taken root behind his eyes, he curls himself into a cocoon and stares at the blankness in front of him until he finds himself caught off guard by the morning.

 

“Do you think Grantaire’s, okay?”

Already almost asleep, Courfeyrac starts at the sound of Jehan’s voice breaking into his silence and blinks back the disgruntled sleepiness that clings to his thoughts and limbs, persistent and strong.  He is not the sort to simply drift in and out, dozing and waking at unpredicted intervals the way that the poet in his arms tends to do.  Rather, he is the sort to sink deep into dreams and shoot back through into wakefulness like a surfacing sea creature.  So, to be caught somewhere odd and in-between when the cycle breaks—

Courf presses his eyes closed and sighs, voice slurred.  “Jehan, it’s bedtime.”

“I know but—”

The sensation of movement, a sudden burst of cold and a lack of contact against his bare chest, does not help the growing sense of discomfort and Courfeyrac finally cracks one eye with a frown.  He is not surprised to find a pair of wide, far too awake eyes staring back at him from where there had previously been a head of tousled, blond hair for him to nuzzle into.  Unfortunately, he does find himself a bit disturbed by the look of concern set so close behind them.

“I’m worried.”

Courfeyrac has to bite his tongue to keep himself from responding without thinking and sighs again as he brings a hand up to his face, trying to rub and blink that last splash of drowsiness out of his system for the time being.  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Well, no, not really.  He’s not sure of any such thing.  It just sounds better than admitting that whatever’s wrong – because honestly, when is something not wrong? – doesn’t seem to be immediately life threatening and therefore he’s too tired and comfortable to care.  Besides which, if it doesn’t involve some physical danger or, like, Enjolras failing to think before he speaks – which, notably, happens far more often when he’s dealing with Grantaire than when he’s dealing with anyone else – what could they even possibly think to do?

But Jehan’s teeth are worrying at a swelling lip and it doesn’t really matter what’s wrong or what they can do about it.  What matters is putting the poet at ease, reassuring him that they can try to come up with a way to help later, and getting them both back to sleep.  So Courfeyrac leans across the short distance between them and drops a kiss on the tip of Jehan’s nose.

“Look, if you’re that worried about it, we can talk to Bahorel in the morning and see if he’s got any ideas.”  When Jehan wrinkles his nose and opens his mouth to voice a protest, Courf just pauses between sentences to catch his boyfriend’s lips with his own.  “Maybe,” he mutters there, bumping their foreheads together, “you can drag R out to the beach for a while tomorrow either way.”  He tucks his face into the crook of Jehan’s neck.  “Take your notebook and get him to trade you a picture for a poem.”  A kiss against his shoulder.  “You were always good at that.”

Jehan squirms and makes a noise that Courfeyrac recognizes as an attempt to keep their conversation serious and not giggle.  “Stop it.”

Courfeyrac stops, smiling into the dip of a collarbone for just a moment before he pulls back to look Jehan in the eye.  “If I promise to do whatever I can to help you make sure R’s not going to, I don’t know, keel over or have a nervous breakdown or whatever possibility it is that’s got you so anxious, will you try to stop worrying long enough to get some decent sleep?”

There’s a pause as they stare at each other, that lip disappearing between those teeth again, but eventually Jehan nods.

“Well, then—”  Content with that, Courf yawns, then presses a quick kiss to the corner of Jehan’s mouth and snuggles in.  “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

Eyes closed, world quiet, he’s just beginning to sink back under when Jehan mumbles against his chest, “I love you.”

Courfeyrac presses a sleepy smile into a soft tangle of hair.  “I love you, too.”

_Now relax and leave it be until morning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please accept this little Jehan/Courfeyrac interlude as my gift of love and gratitude.


	9. Pulling Me Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be forewarned, this is not my best chapter but hrrgh. Some chapters just don't want to flow out like others and this one was rough.

The next morning once again sees everyone else awake long before Grantaire.  For Enjolras in particular, it begins with rolling over to find the sun in his eyes and he leaves his room to find Combeferre also awake and brewing the day’s first pot of coffee.  They share a cup and a bit of conversation at the table before agreeing that it looks like a good morning for a run along the beach and soon enough they’re jogging through the surf side by side.  It makes for a pleasant change from tracing the same old paths through the park around the corner from their home.

When they return to the cottage, however, things are different.

From the back porch they can see into the kitchen and Enjolras pauses without realizing, Combeferre coming short beside him.  Sat around the table, a spot of caffeine in each man’s hand and Feuilly making breakfast, everyone looks remarkably serious for their first morning as a complete unit.  Few of them are speaking – only Bahorel, Courfeyrac, and Jehan, so far as Enjolras can tell – and Joly is the first to spot the newcomers.  The medical student has sat himself near an open window to smoke, a rare habit which speaks volumes of the current conversation, and offers a smile that does not look particularly cheerful.

Enjolras frowns and fails to move until Combeferre’s hand on his back indicates that it’s time to join the meeting rather than simply watch.

“I don’t know,” Bahorel is saying as they enter, scowling into his coffee.  “It’s not like he makes a habit of it.  I think he’s tried three times since we settled down?  Last time was when he busted his knee and he was on those painkillers that made him totally loopy.  Time before that was a couple years ago but I couldn’t get him to go to meetings or anything and our roommates are shithead so—”  There’s a shrug and Bahorel takes a drink.  “As far as I know the first time he ever even tried it was right after we moved into the house.  Some doctor gave him a hard time and made him take some pamphlets or something and Isaac found them and started reeling off this spiel about how most of them were 95% bullshit because the people trying to help you just talked science and you had to pay extra for a therapist.”  He takes another sip, leans back in his chair with a shrug and a sigh.  “I’m pretty sure it only worked because Isaac went every week, too, so it wasn’t just like having these meeting friends he only ever saw at AA.  He had somebody around 24/7 who really knew what he was going through.”

Combeferre has filled two fresh mugs and hands one to Enjolras before taking a seat.  “What did we miss?”

Still frowning, Enjolras hangs back in the window with Joly.

After a sip from his own mug, Courfeyrac sighs.  “Grantaire’s apparently decided to cut his alcohol cold turkey without telling anyone.”

“Every sign points to withdrawal,” Joly puts in, gives his cigarette a nervous puff, then waves the smoke away from Enjolras with a tired but genuinely apologetic smile.  “Jehan was describing things he’d noticed and, well, I could list a dozen other things it could be but that’s the most likely.”

Jehan is pouting, arms crossed on the table in front of him and chin resting in the crook of one elbow.  “Bahorel’s just finished confirming.”

Enjolras’s frown continues to deepen.

Then there’s the sound of a door opening, some oddly hasty shuffling, and Bossuet leans back to see around the corner as another door closes.  “I think he’s gone to the bathroom.”

Bahorel grunts and drains his coffee.  “He’ll be in there for a wguke.  First he vomits, then he take a piss, then he pukes some more, then he takes a shower.”

Marius, silent up to this point, makes such a disgusted face that it’s almost comical, even in light of the situation, and his voice is strained when he speaks.  “I thought you said he’d only done this twice before.”

“I did.”  A coffee mug comes to rest quite decidedly upon the table.  “But it’s a pretty distinctive pattern, not dissimilar to the one observed when he wakes up with a legitimate hangover.”

It’s Feuilly, dishing out food to each of them in turn, who finally asks, “So, anybody give him a hard time about drinking lately or what?”

And Enjolras can feel every eye in the room on him before he even fully registers the question.

“No.”  The word is strong and sure, even as he finds himself fighting the sudden and unreasonable urge to throw his coffee across the room.  Instead, he just leans forward to set it on the table, hardly touched.  “We decided to see how long we could avoid an argument and intentionally broaching that topic would be a sign of blatant disregard for such an agreement.  I’ve let one comment slip since we started this trip and, believe it or not, I was actually hoping to leave it there for at least another day.”  Arms across his chest, he pauses as the others exchange glances before carefully adding, “Besides which, has anyone actually seen him drink since Joly and Bossuet’s?”

No one can say that they have.

A few moments later, everyone still looking serious as they think more about Grantaire than the food that they’re eating, Bahorel taps his fork against his plate.  “It might be where we are.”

Around the table, eyes blink in his general direction.

Bahorel looks at each of them in turn and leans in on his elbows, keeping his voice low.  “Just follow me here.  I mean, we’re hanging around Savannah, where he actually happens to know someone outside of our group and that one person is the same guy who helped him get on the wagon, from which he has since fallen in a tremendously Grantaire-ish fashion.”

“Oh.”  It’s Jehan, now climbed into Courfeyrac’s lap, who quietly puts two and two together.  “Do you really think he’d be…”  One hand motions broadly while the other toys with his hair.  “I don’t know.  Would embarrassed or ashamed be more accurate here?”

Bahorel shrugs.  “Call it what you want, it’s the best excuse I can think of because just being on vacation sure as hell wouldn’t start this kind of bullshit.  I mean, no offence but I kind of expected hanging out with you guys to be more incentive to get pass-out drunk every night, not so much to quit.”

There’s a moment of silence as everyone considers this new barrage of thoughts.

Then Courfeyrac gives a loud sniff.  “So.  What’s a sober Grantaire like anyway?”

The question does as it was meant to do, breaking the tension with a quietly helpless cascade of laughter trickling around the table before Bahorel’s face twitches back into a grimace.  “Sober Grantaire is a lot like drunk Grantaire, to be honest.  Hell, you all talked to while he was dry.  You just didn’t know it.  Quieter, kind of creepy focused, has a fucking Polaroid memory...”

“Hm.”  Combeferre sits back, eyes down as he pulls a cloth from his pocket to clean his glasses.  “Sober Grantaire wouldn’t happen to have coincided with the time period in which every debate seemed to end in Enjolras rewriting half of his papers, would it?”

The glare he receives could melt glaciers but Combeferre is, as usual, unfazed.

Everyone else, meanwhile, seems entirely too entertained and Bahorel grins.  “Probably.”

“Oh, I liked that Grantaire.”  Courfeyrac’s eyes are practically twinkling as he rests his chin on Jehan’s shoulder and takes to playing with the drawstring of the poet’s pajama bottoms.  “Not that I don’t like every Grantaire, mind you, but that one—  Well, he did seem particularly adept at making certain people squirm.  I have to say.”

It’s just as well, Enjolras supposes, that he doesn’t get a chance to protest before the bathroom door swings open and everyone goes silent.  What would he even say?  If he actually gave Courfeyrac that pleasure of having his accusations addressed, he would never hear the end of them.  Better to listen for the sound of shuffling feet, feet which retreat back to the bedroom rather than out to the kitchen.

Bahorel’s expression has gone full circle when he speaks again, dark and serious.  “Try remembering how much you like every Grantaire when you really meet the one halfway between drunk and sober.”

And no one is entirely sure of where to go with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. If anybody missed it, I wrote a little high school flashback. http://archiveofourown.org/works/747154


	10. Come On By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that this chapter may be tremendously painful to read. I don't really know. All I can say is that it was tremendously painful chapter to write, though it came together much more quickly and easily than the last. In part, I know that was just the timing of it for me, personally, but it's still just... not pretty. Then again, pretty is also something that alcoholism, withdrawal, and mental illness shouldn't really be.

By the time Grantaire finally drags himself out of bed for good, it’s almost noon.  Feuilly and Bahorel have gone into town for groceries and Joly and Bossuet have wandered off down the beach and, in their absence, the house has taken on its own lazy air.  On the back porch, Courfeyrac has found the hammock and is lounging with one arm outstretched as he swings back and forth, humming.  Said arm ends with fingers which clutch at the drifting strands of Jehan’s hair, the poet currently sat in a lawn chair almost as brightly colored as his own clothes and situated just out of reach as he scribbles in his notebook.  Meanwhile, Marius is dozing in the window with a half-finished crossword puzzle and Combeferre has taken a chair similar to Jehan’s out into the sand, where he sits just above the tidal line with a book open but unread and his glasses slipped down to the end of his nose.

When Grantaire shuffles outside, coffee in hand and bags under his eyes, Jehan and Courfeyrac exchange a single glance before watching him wander out toward the surf.

“Looks a bit worse for the wear, doesn’t he?” Courfeyrac mumbles.

Jehan pulls his lower lip in between his teeth and reaches over to grip his boyfriend’s outstretched hand, squeezing it for just an instant, before he closes his notebook and jumps to his feet.  “I’m going to go see how he’s feeling.”

Settling a little deeper into the hammock, Courf just sighs and watches him scamper away.

 

Jehan’s bare feet leave gouges in the sand as he jogs to catch up, his smile upon doing so comparable to the sun on a scale of brightness, and Grantaire suddenly wishes that he’d grabbed his sunglasses.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t actually been thinking much further than “coffee” and “fresh air” prior to actually acquiring both.  So instead he has to settle for being blinded as the poet hooks an arm around his elbow and tugs him past the few scrubby trees that frame their rental property and onto the beach proper.  It feels a bit like being stuck under spotlights and all of his demons have suddenly come out to play in them.

“Are you going to sleep in like this every morning?”

Trying his best not to either trip in the shifting turf or spill his drink, Grantaire grunts in answer, expression pulled into a squinting grimace.

It’s something that he can’t really help but he still immediately regrets it, as Jehan suddenly looks far too worried for having only so recently taken up his friend’s company.  “Are you all right?”

R’s got a feeling that may be the question of the hour.

“I’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Grantaire just sighs and pulls Jehan to a stop so he can take a proper drink of his coffee.  The result is the poet still clinging but now also frowning, eyes sad as he lets R take control of the situation.  _I am a little, black, rain cloud._   “Jehan, I’m fine.  Just trying to catch up on some sleep, all right?”

From Jehan’s expression, it is quite evident that it is not only not “all right” but also that nothing Grantaire just said was believed in the slightest.  Luckily, if anyone is going to be both smartly and sympathetically silent at such a time, it’s going to be the flower wrapped around his arm and, after a moment, Jehan has got himself smiling again.  They’re standing at the edge of lapping waves, sand rushing over and under their feet, before Grantaire even knows it.

“Do you think you’ll draw anything while we’re down here?”  Dusty blond hair catches in the sea breeze and suddenly Jehan has let go and gone twirling away, soon enough up to his knees without a thought to the fact that his shorts are going to be soaked in no time.

Grantaire watches all of this with one hand in his pocket and a smile hidden behind his mug.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.  Haven’t really done much for myself lately.”  He takes a drink as Jehan bends himself double to pick up a seashell, then adds, “You’ve already been writing.”

The poet blinks, wide-eyed, and doesn’t straighten himself when he looks up.  “Well, of course!”

“So you’re a bit ahead of me.”

“Art isn’t a competition, you know.”

“It is when it’s how you keep your bills paid.”

Jehan’s answer is just to wrinkle his nose and stick out his tongue.

R finishes his coffee with a grin.  “Anyway, maybe I’ll dig my paints out before we hit the road.  Bet we get some nice sunsets down here.”

There are arms tight around his neck before he even knows it and the two topple to the ground, Grantaire’s coffee now no more than a splash of darkness in the sand.

“Aha, shit, Jehan, what was that for?”

“I’m sorry!  I just got excited!”  With a giggle, Jehan rolls over so that they’re lying side by side, both grinning like loons.  Grantaire doesn’t even know why he’s suddenly feeling so pleased.  It’s just that sunshine smile – it’s infectious – and that cheerful babbling of “I’ve been writing things that are just for me and you’re going to paint something that’s just for you and it’s going to be brilliant!”

R snorts, prodding Jehan lightly in the ribs.  “The results or this whole sordid adventure?”

Arms splayed, the poet closes his eyes, taking in the sun, and lets out a dreamy sigh.  “Either.  Both.  Everything.  This is going to be the best vacation ever.”

He may not have the heart to agree or disagree but Grantaire still reaches out to pat his friend’s head, which earns him not a giggle but a full laugh and suddenly Jehan is clinging to his fingers, pen in hand, and writing, leaving a string of dark, winding words on his skin.  “What are you—”

“Shh!  Concentrating!”

And Grantaire obediently closes his mouth, eyes turning up to the sky for just a moment before his head reminds him of its pounding and he flings his free arm across his face.  He could just go back to sleep right here, right now, couldn’t he?  No one but Jehan would even have to know.

God, though, know what?  That “just go back to sleep” is what he’s been telling himself at least twice an hour all night.  That the pain in his head doesn’t want to be cowed by anything he takes for it.  That he feels like vomiting almost constantly and he can’t tell if it’s from the headache or if the nausea has become its own entity.  That he can’t seem to relax and the tension is keeping him shaky and it’s a good thing it’s warm enough outside because otherwise he’d have to explain why he keeps getting the sweats.  That he’s pretty sure he’s started hallucinating somewhere between his bed and right here, lying in the sand, because he keeps hearing and feeling things that make no sense.

 _Seeing, too_ , he thinks for just a moment.  Then he realizes that he can’t currently see anything through his arm and eyelids and he frees one of them just enough to notice that there’s a shadow cast across them (good, that strip of coolness across his chest was real) and that is why Jehan is motioning at someone not to move.

“No, Enjolras, please,” the poet is saying when Grantaire’s hearing catches up.  “He’s so pale these days, I’m practically sun blind just trying to get this much written.  The shade helps.”

R wants to say something teasing, prod at Jehan and pretend to be insulted, but instead he just ends up letting his unclaimed arm slide up to rest over his head, one eye closed and the other squinting up at the halo the sun throws through a head of golden hair.  He can’t actually see Enjolras’s face at first, what with it eclipsing the sun, but he could imagine a million different expressions there.  Most of them are righteous, angry, out-right furious.

Once upon a time, he’d had to do a facial study for a class and he’d spent every lunch, café stop, and evening with his friends trying to catch the less serious lines and curves under the cast of those curls.  In the end, he’d collected enough examples of joy, contentment, and mirth to complete the assignment but there hadn’t been nearly as many as he would have liked.

When Enjolras finally comes more into focus, his features are shaped into something blessedly near the box that the teacher would have labeled ‘amused.’  “Are you writing something in particular or are you composing on the spot today?”

“If he’s writing John Locke on me again, I’m gonna throw him in the ocean.”

Jehan harrumphs but he’s smiling.  “It’s not Locke.  How do you even remember that, anyway?  It was years ago.  High school years ago.”

“Practically in another world, right?”  R reaches over to poke the poet’s shoulder and instantly wishes he hadn’t turned his head at the same time.  “It was in permanent marker,” he continues, attempting not to let his expression convey the sudden burst of nausea, though he’s pretty sure he can feel himself go a shade paler than he’s already been accused of being.  “I had to use fucking turpentine to get rid of it.”

Above them, Enjolras raises his eyebrows, lips twitching.  “Such a hardship, I’m certain, seeing as you spent most of your time smelling of the stuff as it was.”

Jehan snickers.  “I thought I was the only one who ever remembered how people smelled that long ago.”

“To be fair, it was a rather memorable scent.”  Enjolras, as Grantaire can see from the corner of his eye, cranes his neck a bit in an attempt to actually read the inky scrawl that’s slowly taking over the majority of R’s forearm.  R himself can’t read it due to a combination of the angle and his world swimming whenever he tries to focus.  For that matter, he can’t focus on sound, either, taking far too long to parse the rest.  “I spent quite a few mornings listening to my mother complain I’d let someone get their ‘stench’ all over her spare sheets.”

And then he can’t take it anymore.

Grantaire hears Jehan squeak in surprise and vaguely registers shadows flickering across the sand but he doesn’t even attempt to pay them any mind in his scramble, trying to find his footing as he lurches into motion.  Twice he nearly topples in his mad dash back to the house.  The sound of his bare feet striking the porch at a run startles both Marius and Courfeyrac awake, the former finally dropping his newspaper and the latter nearly tumbling out of the hammock.  Bahorel and Feuilly come through the front door just in time to see him disappear into the hallway bathroom.

Five minutes later, curled around the toilet with a thin layer of sweat and tears drying into a film of disgust and a hand clamped over his mouth as if he might be able to stop another round of vomit if he just holds on tightly enough, Grantaire nearly leaps out of his skin at the sound of someone knocking.  The sound is booming in his ears, pulsing light behind his eyes, even though he knows better, knows that the contact between door and knuckles was probably minimal.  It seems forever before he can even hear enough to catch another sound.

“R?”  It’s Jehan, quiet and tentative and R can’t remember if he locked the door but no one is trying to enter either way.  “Um.  Grantaire are— are you all right?”

 _No.  No, I’m not.  I am not all right at all._   Face scrunched up against the threat of more tears – Christ, he hates crying, hates even more the fact that he can’t seem to stop it, control it – he chokes a muffled “I’m fine” through slightly parted fingers.  It is the most bald-faced lie that he has ever told in his life, the one he’s told more times than he’d like to remember.  His back finds the nearest wall and he pulls his knees up, rests his forehead against them, watches his hands shake for a moment before he wraps his arms around his shins.

Outside, there’s a moment of silence before that small, worried voice speaks again.  “Can—  Is there anything—”

Before Jehan can even put a full sentence together, Bahorel’s voice rumbles low in the background.  “I’m gonna get him some water.”

It makes Grantaire cry even harder and his arms move up to cover his head, hands gripping elbows, muscles tensing.  He remembers describing the feeling to a doctor once, this chain reaction like a line of dominoes.  First it’s his shoulders, then it’s his arms, then his back, then his abdomen, his legs, his everything.  Nothing he hears after that makes any sense, except for the creak of the half-opened door and the click of it closing again, and then a glass is set down by his feet and he can feel someone crouching down in front of him.

Bahorel.  He can recognize that.  It’s Bahorel.  Close but not touching.  Calm and calming and far too familiar with all of this, with him, with his complete and utter bullshit.

Words are a murmur, jumbled and running together and breaking apart in bursts of white noise like his mind is an old-fashioned radio.  “Hey—ey, re—ust try t—lax.  –olras, those pil—  Relax, Gran—mnit.  Come o—  Grantaire.  _Breathe_.”

When hands try to pry his arms apart, he isn’t consciously resisting but he still can’t seem to move.  Then one sharp shove forces his shoulders back against the wall and somewhere in the very back of his mind he’s able to process the look on Bahorel’s face as being an expression of apology.  That same place catches on the fact that someone else is in the room as well but the door is shut and—  Two.  There are two people.  Bahorel and someone else.  None of his best and oldest friends have ever seen him like this except Bahorel and now someone else.  Someone else.

Then there’s something being shoved into his face – the cap off of one of his medications with a single, little, white pill held in it, dwarfed by it – and Bahorel is saying something.  It isn’t the words that finally come together as instructions but the rattle of that pill being shaken under his nose.  The chalky, bitter flavor barely touches his tongue before the bottle cap is replaced by the glass of water.  Bahorel takes it back when R chokes but keeps it held close until they’re all certain that the coughing has subsided and that little savior pill has gone down.

Unfocused, Grantaire watches as Bahorel hands the glass up into another hand, says something, turns back to stare at him, says something.

R just closes his eyes and tries as hard as he can not to be ill.

He doesn’t open them again until his muscles have finally started unclenching and a completely different sort of disoriented haze has started to replace the shrieking interference and someone is speaking.  He can hear again that someone is speaking.  He can’t identify the voices, only half understands the words, but he can hear them.

That has to mean something.

“—sleep for twelve—”

“—get Joly or—”

“—going to call—”

“—that help?”

“—else we can—”

Then he’s waking up in his bed and he isn’t sure of a lot of things but mostly he isn’t sure if he cares that he has no idea right now where he is or what’s going on.  There’s a heaviness behind the bend of his knees, the sensation like something is lying there, guarding him.  There’s a blurry series of lumps on the bed across the room that he can only barely focus enough to make out as multiple shapes rather than just one.  There’s a sound, first droning then separating, then coming together as two distinct voices.

“Hell of a way to start a vacation.”

“Could be worse.  Could be in the hospital.”

“Yeah, been there, done that.  It’s how we ended up with you, remember?”

“Make my friendship sound like more of a hardship.  I dare you.”

Somewhere off to one side, a third party sighs.  “Please don’t take this the wrong way but I think I’ve now penetrated the very basis of that friendship.”

“Oh?”

“I’m listening to Bahorel converse with himself.”

The sound of those first two voices laughing is comforting and that comfort is a mercy and Grantaire shifts to place one hand on the head of the dog curled against him before gratefully drifting back into sleep.


	11. And It Wakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning to end this chapter where I did - it's a bit short - but I just kept staring at it and my thoughts kept stalling and I guess I sort of needed the break-off point. I don't know. My brain is tired.

It takes only a matter of minutes for everyone to conclude that they like Isaac.  He’s small, energetic, friendly, and cheerful, and Feuilly expands upon what little they really get to see of him by explaining that he’s a lot like someone just took bits and pieces off of Bahorel and Grantaire and swirled them together, like mixing a new pot of paint.  There are a few hints of black and blue that have snuck in here and there to shade him a bit differently and they all know better than to think that what they see on the surface is a perfect reflection of what’s inside, but the fact that those who have actually come to know him still like him speaks volumes in his favor and Jehan, in particular, is enraptured by the way he arrives in a splash of bright color with a wave of furry friends close behind.  When one of his dogs takes Bossuet down in a single massive leap of unexpected affection, the man even spares a moment to laugh with them, once he’s done thoroughly apologizing and calling off a beast that looks twice his size.

Not until Bahorel appears in the hallway does Isaac’s smile so much as waver and he excuses himself with only one of his four dogs still at his heels.

“I don’t even know him and I feel better already.”  Sprawled on the sofa, Jehan curled into his lap and a flat-faced, little dog snuffling at them, Courfeyrac flashes a lopsided grin at the ceiling as he speaks, a hand curling into stray strands of his boyfriend’s hair.

Everyone is relieved to think that they all agree.

 

Enjolras finds the feel of a stranger’s presence amongst their close circle discomfiting but he does his best not to show it.  He’s not even sure why he’s so anxious to keep his distance but he tries to be well-mannered about it.  Bahorel introduces them to one another and they shake hands to the tune of Isaac’s laughter.

“Ah!  I see now.  Nice to finally meet you.”

That doesn’t really help the situation at all.

Perched on the footboard, he mostly watches the sun set on the sleeping form across the room, a dog now tucked in behind twitching knees, though his eyes occasionally return to the two friends seated on his own bed and he can’t help but listen to their chatting.  They weave together strands of reminiscence and tales of what’s happened to them since the last time they spoke and Enjolras feels, for the first time in his life, like a complete outsider to the situation at hand.  More than once he pushes forward, stands without support, considers leaving.  A part of him is surprised that neither of them have actually asked him to.

He always ends up sitting back down.

“So…”  Isaac’s cheerfulness finally breaks under the weight and Enjolras is surprised to find the man looking at him, if for only a moment, when he turns towards the sound.  “Someone explain to me exactly why I’m here.”

The request comes as a surprise and Enjolras furrows his brow, eyes snapping to Bahorel, who is staring out the window rather than looking at either of them.  When the older man had disappeared to call his friend, Enjolras had simply assumed that the entire story would be told right then and there, at least in summary.  Surely he wouldn’t bring someone into this sort of situation blind.  Surely someone wouldn’t come at this hour without knowing.  The entire household was already tip-toeing uselessly around it as it was.

Bahorel’s expression twists into a grimace by way of answer.  “R’s sick.”

“Got that, dipshit.”

“He, uh, might be going through withdrawal.”

The look the two pass between them, seemingly forgetting that there is another conscious human being nearby, reminds Enjolras in an instant just how much things have changed.

“How bad?”

“I don’t know.  I mean, he was having a fit before I called you but it looked like an anxiety attack so we just made him take an Ativan.”

“We?”

Enjolras barely manages not to start in surprise when Bahorel’s hand thumps flat against his back.  “I’m sort of dragging our fearless leader into the fray.  Figure we need more people who can handle this stuff, just in case, and at least R listens to him.”

Isaac snorts but flashes a smile toward Enjolras at the same time.  “Grantaire only half listens to anyone.”

The expression contains a degree of fondness that sits oddly amongst his partially interpreted feelings but Enjolras ignores his own internal bristling in favor of the fact that he can’t deny that the statement is, at least, too very true.

 

It’s late and dark before Grantaire wakes.  Those who haven’t spent the hours in his room are mostly out for dinner upon orders from Enjolras to go and do something, enjoy themselves.  Courfeyrac, Jehan, Joly and Bossuet had all followed Feuilly out and piled into his old clunker of a car while Marius and Combeferre had opted out.  The former walks the beach, on a call with Cosette, and the latter sprawls across the sofa with a nice cup of a tea and a book for company.  Bahorel, upon some insistence from both other parties watching over their unconscious friend, eventually wanders one room over to borrow Combeferre’s bed for a nap.

That leaves just two, all but complete strangers to one another, and a small pack of dogs to watch and wait and wonder.

“You should probably try to get some sleep, too.”  They’ve turned on no lights and it’s only the dim glow of the moon and stars that illuminate Isaac’s expression.  He looks serious, worried, a show of exhausted compassion, and Enjolras almost wants to fight back against the comfortable feeling that’s slowly begun to settle in the longer they sit together, almost wants to tell this man how little sense it makes to say such things, to care so much when they’ve barely just met.

Almost.

The words that come to mind, however, all sound themselves out in the cynical lilt of Grantaire’s voice rather than his own and he simply stares across the room instead.  “My limited knowledge of yourself tells me that you should likely be doing the same and yet—”

Isaac laughs, quiet and low, and moves to speak again but the sound of motion changes everything.

“Fuck.”

It is, perhaps, not the most eloquent of first words, vulgar and slurred as it is, but it instantly sets both of the young men across from the formerly sleeping figure slightly more at ease.  He repeats it when one of them reaches up to turn on a lamp.  The third iteration comes in response to focusing enough to see exactly who his two companions happen to be and he closes his eyes again, squeezed shut as if that will keep everything out.  Unfortunately, he’s already too awake and his head has already started pounding.

“So, first things first.”  A body shifts on the edge of the other bed.  “What’s the dearest price you’d pay for some painkillers right now?”

Grantaire drags the pillow over his head with a groan.  “Fuck you.”

The response a moment later is right next to him.  “No thanks.”

He can’t help but look hopeful when he peeks out and, much to his relief, he finds himself offered a glass and a pair of little pills.  It takes some doing to drag himself into a seated position but he manages, trying not to actually look anyone in the eye as he takes the offering.  Isaac simply remains crouched there beside the bed with a smile, sad and sympathetic, and waits.  What Enjolras is doing, Grantaire doesn’t know and he keeps his eyes down so as not to find out.  His pride is still a bit too battered for that.

“So,” Isaac starts again, rocking back on his heels.

Grantaire looks down to where the dog that had formerly curled behind his knees has now scooted up to rest its head on his thigh.  “So.”

“So, let’s talk.”

He pauses a moment, frozen, then sighs.  “About what?”

Isaac rests a hand on his knee.  “Oh, I don’t know.  About really bad decisions, maybe?”


End file.
